Wrong Court The EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement will now start hurting U.S. exporters, and the next ding will come when the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) sans the U.S. (aka CPTT) is completed this year. Yet Tokyo’s largest external trade surplus is with the U.S. USDA Under Secretary Ted McKinney reportedly said that the ball is in Japan’s court on pursuing a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. This then begs the question: why is the Trump administration treating Japan with kid gloves on the trade imbalance issue, especially since the U.S. would appear to have the geopolitical leverage to remedy the situation? Full Transparency Hypercompetitive British food retailers are reporting the amount of antibiotics used in the meat...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.