World Perspectives

Recent Macroeconomics Analysis

Divergent Perspectives

China doesn’t offer the best business environment for American companies and FDI has plummeted. But Xi Jinping told CEO’s that his country will continue building a “first class business environment.” Meanwhile, Joe Biden tells American companies that they are monopolies...

BRICS Grain Exchange; EU Policy Foibles; Yen Implosion

BRICS Grain Exchange Russia is reportedly pushing other BRICS members to use the bloc as a grain exchange in competition with the West. The assertion is that these countries already control 42 percent of the grain trade. Add the new members like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE, plus other...

Factless Nostalgia; Cash is King

Factless Nostalgia There is yet another crusader against the modern agrifood system. This time it is Austin Frerick, who claims authenticity due to his Iowa roots but he is just another Ivy League university (Yale) pontificator hollering from the ivory tower. His book, “Barons,” com...

Revising Down the Economy

We’ve now had a couple of months in 2024 where economic report revisions have come in, and they have been significant. This has changed the outlook on the economy from bullish during the last part of 2023 and January, to now being more uncertain.  First, the February payroll report s...

Fixing the WTO; The Winner is Ag

Fixing the WTO The 13th Ministerial Conference last month in Abu Dhabi was yet another failure by the WTO. Now Singapore has proposed a retreat to discuss fundamental fixes needed to stop the long string of failures. Ultimately, the structural problems of the WTO involve one country, one vote a...

Fake Meat Fight; Transatlantic Mutuality; Biofuel Instead of Food

Fake Meat Fight Some western state U.S. Senate Democrats are in tough reelection positions and need to show their distance from President Biden. Following SPS protocols, President Biden recently approved imports of beef from Paraguay. Today the Senate passed a resolution overturning the Preside...

Policy Shorts

India Paradox: A new report using the Modified Mixed Recall Period shows that over the past decade, India matched China’s success in the decade before in eliminating extreme poverty. It has not experienced the same growth in GDP, but its programs and policies made progress. At the same ti...

Trade Negotiation Calculation; UTP = You and Me; Real and Imagined

Trade Negotiation Calculation The WTO’s dispute settlement system and new multilateral trade negotiations fail from the perspective of Donald Trump and now Joe Biden because they put all parties on equal footing. This means the U.S. loses its asymmetric advantage of being an economic and...

Cahiers Redux – Politicians Recoil

The Cahiers de doléances [or kaje for short] were the pre-French revolution (1789) lists of societal complaints. The collective disappointments of the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of society too. Nothing has changed. Documents of the time cite the criticisms as: government waste, i...

Big is Bad; Big is Uncertain; Texas is Big

Big is Bad President Joe Biden has a popular proposal, increase taxes on less than 800 billionaires in the U.S. If some people worry about politics for sale, it still takes votes. Sometimes that happens within a class. Divide and conquer. The EU’s proposed relaxation of GAEC production ob...

Squeaky Wheel; EATS Ugly

Squeaky Wheels Farmers in Europe have been on a rampage for months and it is good that EU political leaders are responding to the complaints. Squeaky wheels get the grease because they are high-pitched and shrill, but sometimes grease is not the cure and instead it requires a whole new set of b...

China’s Veiled Data; Unveiled Livestock Emissions

China’s Veiled Data Some agricultural analysts in the West have noted that Chinese data reporting in the sector can go missing, fail to be consistent, or be even outright false in order to better comport with Beijing’s policy mandates. Now the Financial Times notes that the problem...

Bogus Problem; Radicalism Backlash

Bogus Problem Reinforcing the problem asserted by USDA’s political leadership, the Economic Research Service highlighted Census of Agriculture data showing that most losses of farms over the past decade have been small operations, while there was an increase in the largest sized farms. Se...

Biden Dictates Prices; Dictating Standards; Dictating to Meat

Biden Dictates Prices President Joe Biden tried to position himself in last night’s State of the Union address as the bulwark against the rising tide of threats to democracy. Then he dictated to the banking industry how much they can charge for credit card late fees, threatened action aga...

Food Wins; Stating the Obvious

Food Wins Commercial food workers hate fast line speeds at meat processors because it makes them work harder and reduces the required number of workers. Animal rights activists hate faster line speeds at meat packers because more animals get slaughtered. The Biden Administration is certainly su...

Katy Bar the Door; Pursuing Food Sovereignty; USMCA Expansion

Katy Bar the Door Malaysia had filed a WTO dispute settlement case against the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, arguing it is prejudicil in limiting the amount of imported palm oil that could qualify under the scheme. Brussels has pursued other ways to limit imports of palm oil from South...

White House Hypocrisy; Support for Thailand; Green Protectionism; The Real Foe

White House Hypocrisy The economy, and specifically inflation, is one of four top issues dogging President Biden’s reelection campaign and the White House has a solution. It is forming a multiagency “strike force” to curb “unfair and illegal” pricing. Most sellers...

MC13 Unsurprisingly Disappoints

USTR is spinning that progress was made at the WTO’s ministerial in Abu Dhabi that ended over the weekend, claiming progress on revitalizing the dispute settlement process, though arriving at no conclusion. There was an extension of the duty-free provision on ecommerce, though even that h...

Europe’s Mantel; Trade-less Trade Advisor

Europe’s Mantel Sans Viande: In three months, France will ban the use of “meat” when referring to meat alternative products. Since profits are in the adjective, meaning consumers will pay a premium for claims-based products such as geographic indicators, farmers in France have...

“Healthy” Food Slows Ag Approps

Last Friday, WPI reported on the status of the appropriations process; Congress has until Friday of this week to pass four appropriations bills, including the one funding agriculture and other agencies. If funding lapses, agencies like USDA will be unable to open on Monday 4 March. House Speake...

Data versus Rhetoric

Politico reports that President Biden wants to attack the U.S. food industry in his 7 March State of the Union address to Congress. He believes his Super Bowl attack on food companies for “shrinkflation” struck a chord with voters for its deceptive nature. Rather than raise prices,...

feed-grains wheat soy-oilseeds

Market Commentary: Higher CBOT and Corn Reversal Deny Long-Run Bearish Outlook

The CBOT turned mostly higher to start the week amid some bullish fundamental developments and funds covering shorts after the market’s recent and wildly profitable plunge lower. Corn was the upside leader with the May contract posting a bullish key reversal on the chart as export inspect...

livestock wheat soy-oilseeds

Market Commentary: CBOT Decline Continues while Stocks Rally; EPA Confirms Summer E15 Sales

The CBOT was mostly lower again on Thursday with funds retaining their bearish grip on the markets and driving futures into the red. Despite adjustments to South American crop expectations, corn and soybean markets are reacting to overall favorable production conditions and the looming crops th...

Cost of Deception; Trade and Politics; Political Constituencies

Cost of Deception President Joe Biden like other politicians thought he made a clever calculation when he recent;ly blamed food processors for inflation in the sector. As he scorned, “The American public is tired of being played for suckers…I’ve had enough of what they call s...

German Broken Window Theory; Mixed Ethanol Policies; Future of Food

German Broken Window Theory At this past weekend’s Munich Security Conference, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said U.S. defense contractors and the American economy would benefit from spending more money helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Biden economic adviser Lael Br...

International Agency Capture; Running Out of Crap; Vilsack Shines

International Agency Capture Regulatory capture occurs when a policymaker or regulator is co-opted to serve the interests of a minor constituency. That capture has now occurred to two international agencies, the WTO and the IEA. The WTO is dysfunctional because it has been recast as a developme...

More Subsidies for Scale; APEP Trade; African Humor

More Subsidies for Scale The Biden Administration blames large meat packers for higher consumer prices. Its solution has been to subsidize the startup of small meat packers with grants (Value-Added Producer Grants) and loans. The program has been a smashing success. Over the past year the avera...

Census of Ag Summary – Same Trends Continue

USDA released the latest Census of Agriculture today. Typically, the release is every five years, so this is the 2022 census, updated from 2017. The response rate to the 2022 census was 61 percent; in 2017 it was 72 percent.  Total farm sales in 2022, a year of record farm income, were $54...

Farm Bill Lacks Gravitas; Paying for Change

Farm Bill Lacks Gravitas Farmer protests appear to be exploding everywhere. Of course, in Europe where it is part of the profession. But in India as well where farmers are demanding higher minimum support process. Farmers in the U.S. also want higher guarantees for farm income. Commodity prices...

Farmer/Green Divide

The recent policy reversal in Europe on environmental obligations for farmers is not being welcomed by everyone. Greenpeace warns that excluding farms from emission reductions will ultimately hurt farmers as their crops fail under the burden of climate change. They are also warning that farmers...

The Ashes of EU’s Greens; Redefining Consensus

The Ashes of EU’s Greens There is a lot of finger-pointing in Brussels over responsibility for originally drafting the Green Deal/Farm to Fork debacle, and now its withdrawal. The political nature of the whole exercise was illustrated by EU President Ursula von der Leyen’s rationale...

EU Sobers Up

The EU’s political leaders have made dramatic policy reversals in recent days that reflect a more reasoned approach than in the past. As noted previously, they have scrapped some of the Green Deal/Farm to Fork requirements like quitting pesticides, and today the EU Parliament (EP) approve...

Tariffs are Coming; EU Politicians Cave; Unbridgeable Differences; Flawed Science Bias

Tariffs are Coming While U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised more tariffs if he is elected, border measures against China are likely regardless of this year’s winner of the White House. China has ramped up bank credits to producers of EV’s, batteries, solar, and mi...

Fed Holds Rates: Looking for Confidence Moving Forward

The Federal Reserve left the federal funds rate unchanged this week at the latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).  As WPI reported on 23 January,  … the Federal Funds futures market was pricing in a more than 97 percent chance of the Fed leaving rates uncha...

Bidenomics Analysis; Dollar versus Yuan

Bidenomics Analysis Inflation has helped make President Joe Biden unpopular and he’s fighting back with the accusation of “price gouging” by the grocery business. Food inflation remains stubbornly high but not because of grocery store greed. Grocery store operating profits are...

Innovate, Replicate or Regulate; Trade Policy Bias

Innovate, Replicate or Regulate U.S. Big Tech companies should take a lesson from their Big Ag counterparts – Europe is not your friend. Looking at artificial intelligence, EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager says the "The choice should not be American or American.” Yet t...

Uncertainties Abound

Newly installed Argentine President Javier Milei told elites in Davos last week that they need to rally around capitalism because socialism has never improved the lives of people. His speech was welcomed by some in the audience but not by all back in Argentina. He now faces large protests in Ar...

NGT Controversy

Environmentalists in Europe are reportedly furious over the European Parliament’s Environment Committee approving the use of some new genomic techniques (NGTs) in an unregulated manner. One framing is that the conservative members of the Committee pushed it through, but conservatives comp...

EU Policy Developments; India PSH and MC-13; EPA Regulating Livestock

EU Policy Developments Farmer protests in Europe have increased and some credit the movement with softening Brussels’ views toward Ukrainian grain threatening producers in eastern Europe. However, farmers have also been protesting the Green Deal/Farm to Fork and efforts to change the way...

Changes in U.S. Agricultural Trade

The export of surplus U.S. agricultural production remains hugely important to some crops, especially for cotton and sorghum where over half of output is traded internationally, as well as for soybeans, wheat, and rice. From the 1980’s through 2017, U.S. trade policy was focused on expand...

People In, Pork Out; Prop 12 Int’l Problem; Ceding the Advantage

People In, Pork Out Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California could stop pork from Iowa from coming into the state if it was not produced according to the dictates of Sacramento. This week, the same court ruled that Austin cannot prevent migrants from coming into the state...

Whither Trade

Analysts are intensely studying the changes in trade flows and their composition following the reversal from free trade by the Trump Administration, the concerns about supply chains due to COVID, and now the de-risking of the West from China. Supply chains have gotten slightly shorter. Overall...

Tradition Tackles Progress; Data Confusion

Tradition Tackles Progress At least twelve EU member states are trying to block the introduction of lab-grown meat. The pretense is that such a product “raises ethical, economic, social, and public health questions” but the underlying rationale is that “These practices represe...

Not Magnanimous; Transatlantic Tech Divide; Advice for Europe

Not Magnanimous An AgriPulse poll of geographically dispersed farmers from across the U.S. with at least $100,000 in gross annual income reflects some greed but low compassion. As commodity values decline, farmers want higher reference prices to ensure income support from the government. They w...

Winter Gives Biofuel Boost

A record 1.2 million electric vehicles (EVs) were sold in the U.S. in 2023. EVs hit a record 8.1 percent market share in the fourth quarter. However, also growing fast and having larger sales are hybrid, using a combination of battery and typically fossil fuels. For agricultural producers, rule...

Transatlantic Commonality; Argentina’s NTB’s

Transatlantic Commonality Politico’s senior foreign correspondent Nahal Toosi noted that ambassadors in Washington are warning that U.S. power and influence in the world is declining due to the nation’s intense partisan political divide. But it is not exactly glory days in Europe. F...

Value of Scale Recognized

Agriculture ministers from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia) are asking the European Commission to come up with a solution to the harm they say is being caused by imports of grain from Ukraine. One option is to impose tariffs on Ukraine. However, it is their a...

Greens Whiff; State Aid Impacts

Greens Whiff Farmers in Europe are upset with their policymakers. The French farmers union has just announced it backs the protests being made by German farm groups. Taking a page out of the Biden White House playbook, German Greens are blaming supermarkets for the troubles being faced by farme...

Quackery Has its Limits; Cockroach Amnesia; Identity Budgeting

Quackery Has its Limits  The USMCA panel opining on the Mexican ban on GMO corn has decided it will not accept comments from Canadian NGO groups wanting to support the Mexican position. First, the Canadian’s position in the case is largely amicus curae. Canada is a minor producer of...

Chips War; Domino Effect

Chips War China complained that Washington’s export restrictions on semiconductors and on Chinese telecommunications companies violate WTO principles. There are larger worries than that. China has just taken over the number one position as a global automobile exporter and Washington worri...

Trade Deficit Down, Job Creation Up: A Look Under the Hood

Two recent economic reports have generated attention: the November balance of payments trade deficit and the December payroll report. There are tea leaves to be read for both.    First, the trade deficit for all goods and services in November was down 2 percent, to $63.2 billion. The...

Eyes Open on India

USDA is leading a trade mission to India, noting that it is 1.4 billion people or 18 percent of the global population but accounts for less than one percent of U.S. agricultural exports. Average tariff rates tend to be higher in developing countries and lower in developed countries. But India&r...

Bright Belgian Light; SSA Riddle

Bright Belgian Light According to Euractiv, Belgian Federal Minister David Clarinval said he would emphasize food sovereignty as he assumes the Presidency of the EU’s Agriculture Council for the next six months. He said, “we must provide farmers with the tools to produce sufficient...

PepsiCo, Carrefour and GI’s; ChatGPT Goes Harvard

PepsiCo, Carrefour and GI’s A major story this week is major French retailer Carrefour saying it is dropping PepsiCo products because its prices are too high. It is not unusual for American companies to face attacks from the French but inflation is not a problem that PepsiCo has manifeste...

Russian Agriculture Enigma; Imbalanced Analysis

Russian Agriculture Enigma Among the many elections this year is Russia’s during 15-17 March. Vladimir Putin will be overwhelmingly elected. He has been effectively in control of the country for 23 years. Andrei Kolesnikov at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says that Russia...

Trade is Dead, So is Ag; Siloed America

Trade is Dead, So is Ag The U.S. agricultural trade balance has reversed, going from positive to negative. Industry leaders are arguing that the solution is more trade agreements but that is unlikely. President Biden has pulled back from his pursuit of minimalist trade objectives in the IPEF ta...

2024 Food Industry; Continued Multipolarity; AI Restrictions Emerging

2024 Food Industry Politico says the Biden Administration will crank up its anti-big business efforts for this election year. A long list of anti-trust investigations are coming to fore, including against Big Ag. Targets include the merger of grocery retailers Kroger and Albertsons and stopping...

Old President, Old Allegiances

President Biden sided with the steel workers union and will put Nippon Steel’s purchase of US Steel through the “serious scrutiny” of the Administration’s own Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). As noted previously (Blatant Nationalism), Nippon...

Bitter Problem; Blatant Nationalism

Bitter Problem The U.S. sugar program is an protectionist abomination emanating from a political deal in the 1981 farm bill. Unlike other crops that are subsidized directly by the government, sugar erects restrictive import quotas and then forces American consumers to pay 2-3 times the world pr...

232 Confusion; Green Border Measures

232 Confusion WTO dispute settlement rulings are arcane, highly legalistic, but sometimes contradictory to the layman’s eye. The latest case is a ruling against Turkiye for its retaliation against U.S. Section 232 tariffs against steel and aluminum imports from the Turks. A year ago, a pa...

Divergent Perspectives

China doesn’t offer the best business environment for American companies and FDI has plummeted. But Xi Jinping told CEO’s that his country will continue building a “first class business environment.” Meanwhile, Joe Biden tells American companies that they are monopolies...

BRICS Grain Exchange; EU Policy Foibles; Yen Implosion

BRICS Grain Exchange Russia is reportedly pushing other BRICS members to use the bloc as a grain exchange in competition with the West. The assertion is that these countries already control 42 percent of the grain trade. Add the new members like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE, plus other...

Factless Nostalgia; Cash is King

Factless Nostalgia There is yet another crusader against the modern agrifood system. This time it is Austin Frerick, who claims authenticity due to his Iowa roots but he is just another Ivy League university (Yale) pontificator hollering from the ivory tower. His book, “Barons,” com...

Revising Down the Economy

We’ve now had a couple of months in 2024 where economic report revisions have come in, and they have been significant. This has changed the outlook on the economy from bullish during the last part of 2023 and January, to now being more uncertain.  First, the February payroll report s...

Fixing the WTO; The Winner is Ag

Fixing the WTO The 13th Ministerial Conference last month in Abu Dhabi was yet another failure by the WTO. Now Singapore has proposed a retreat to discuss fundamental fixes needed to stop the long string of failures. Ultimately, the structural problems of the WTO involve one country, one vote a...

Fake Meat Fight; Transatlantic Mutuality; Biofuel Instead of Food

Fake Meat Fight Some western state U.S. Senate Democrats are in tough reelection positions and need to show their distance from President Biden. Following SPS protocols, President Biden recently approved imports of beef from Paraguay. Today the Senate passed a resolution overturning the Preside...

Policy Shorts

India Paradox: A new report using the Modified Mixed Recall Period shows that over the past decade, India matched China’s success in the decade before in eliminating extreme poverty. It has not experienced the same growth in GDP, but its programs and policies made progress. At the same ti...

Trade Negotiation Calculation; UTP = You and Me; Real and Imagined

Trade Negotiation Calculation The WTO’s dispute settlement system and new multilateral trade negotiations fail from the perspective of Donald Trump and now Joe Biden because they put all parties on equal footing. This means the U.S. loses its asymmetric advantage of being an economic and...

Cahiers Redux – Politicians Recoil

The Cahiers de doléances [or kaje for short] were the pre-French revolution (1789) lists of societal complaints. The collective disappointments of the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of society too. Nothing has changed. Documents of the time cite the criticisms as: government waste, i...

Big is Bad; Big is Uncertain; Texas is Big

Big is Bad President Joe Biden has a popular proposal, increase taxes on less than 800 billionaires in the U.S. If some people worry about politics for sale, it still takes votes. Sometimes that happens within a class. Divide and conquer. The EU’s proposed relaxation of GAEC production ob...

Squeaky Wheel; EATS Ugly

Squeaky Wheels Farmers in Europe have been on a rampage for months and it is good that EU political leaders are responding to the complaints. Squeaky wheels get the grease because they are high-pitched and shrill, but sometimes grease is not the cure and instead it requires a whole new set of b...

China’s Veiled Data; Unveiled Livestock Emissions

China’s Veiled Data Some agricultural analysts in the West have noted that Chinese data reporting in the sector can go missing, fail to be consistent, or be even outright false in order to better comport with Beijing’s policy mandates. Now the Financial Times notes that the problem...

Bogus Problem; Radicalism Backlash

Bogus Problem Reinforcing the problem asserted by USDA’s political leadership, the Economic Research Service highlighted Census of Agriculture data showing that most losses of farms over the past decade have been small operations, while there was an increase in the largest sized farms. Se...

Biden Dictates Prices; Dictating Standards; Dictating to Meat

Biden Dictates Prices President Joe Biden tried to position himself in last night’s State of the Union address as the bulwark against the rising tide of threats to democracy. Then he dictated to the banking industry how much they can charge for credit card late fees, threatened action aga...

Food Wins; Stating the Obvious

Food Wins Commercial food workers hate fast line speeds at meat processors because it makes them work harder and reduces the required number of workers. Animal rights activists hate faster line speeds at meat packers because more animals get slaughtered. The Biden Administration is certainly su...

Katy Bar the Door; Pursuing Food Sovereignty; USMCA Expansion

Katy Bar the Door Malaysia had filed a WTO dispute settlement case against the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, arguing it is prejudicil in limiting the amount of imported palm oil that could qualify under the scheme. Brussels has pursued other ways to limit imports of palm oil from South...

White House Hypocrisy; Support for Thailand; Green Protectionism; The Real Foe

White House Hypocrisy The economy, and specifically inflation, is one of four top issues dogging President Biden’s reelection campaign and the White House has a solution. It is forming a multiagency “strike force” to curb “unfair and illegal” pricing. Most sellers...

MC13 Unsurprisingly Disappoints

USTR is spinning that progress was made at the WTO’s ministerial in Abu Dhabi that ended over the weekend, claiming progress on revitalizing the dispute settlement process, though arriving at no conclusion. There was an extension of the duty-free provision on ecommerce, though even that h...

Europe’s Mantel; Trade-less Trade Advisor

Europe’s Mantel Sans Viande: In three months, France will ban the use of “meat” when referring to meat alternative products. Since profits are in the adjective, meaning consumers will pay a premium for claims-based products such as geographic indicators, farmers in France have...

“Healthy” Food Slows Ag Approps

Last Friday, WPI reported on the status of the appropriations process; Congress has until Friday of this week to pass four appropriations bills, including the one funding agriculture and other agencies. If funding lapses, agencies like USDA will be unable to open on Monday 4 March. House Speake...

Data versus Rhetoric

Politico reports that President Biden wants to attack the U.S. food industry in his 7 March State of the Union address to Congress. He believes his Super Bowl attack on food companies for “shrinkflation” struck a chord with voters for its deceptive nature. Rather than raise prices,...

feed-grains wheat soy-oilseeds

Market Commentary: Higher CBOT and Corn Reversal Deny Long-Run Bearish Outlook

The CBOT turned mostly higher to start the week amid some bullish fundamental developments and funds covering shorts after the market’s recent and wildly profitable plunge lower. Corn was the upside leader with the May contract posting a bullish key reversal on the chart as export inspect...

livestock wheat soy-oilseeds

Market Commentary: CBOT Decline Continues while Stocks Rally; EPA Confirms Summer E15 Sales

The CBOT was mostly lower again on Thursday with funds retaining their bearish grip on the markets and driving futures into the red. Despite adjustments to South American crop expectations, corn and soybean markets are reacting to overall favorable production conditions and the looming crops th...

Cost of Deception; Trade and Politics; Political Constituencies

Cost of Deception President Joe Biden like other politicians thought he made a clever calculation when he recent;ly blamed food processors for inflation in the sector. As he scorned, “The American public is tired of being played for suckers…I’ve had enough of what they call s...

German Broken Window Theory; Mixed Ethanol Policies; Future of Food

German Broken Window Theory At this past weekend’s Munich Security Conference, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said U.S. defense contractors and the American economy would benefit from spending more money helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Biden economic adviser Lael Br...

International Agency Capture; Running Out of Crap; Vilsack Shines

International Agency Capture Regulatory capture occurs when a policymaker or regulator is co-opted to serve the interests of a minor constituency. That capture has now occurred to two international agencies, the WTO and the IEA. The WTO is dysfunctional because it has been recast as a developme...

More Subsidies for Scale; APEP Trade; African Humor

More Subsidies for Scale The Biden Administration blames large meat packers for higher consumer prices. Its solution has been to subsidize the startup of small meat packers with grants (Value-Added Producer Grants) and loans. The program has been a smashing success. Over the past year the avera...

Census of Ag Summary – Same Trends Continue

USDA released the latest Census of Agriculture today. Typically, the release is every five years, so this is the 2022 census, updated from 2017. The response rate to the 2022 census was 61 percent; in 2017 it was 72 percent.  Total farm sales in 2022, a year of record farm income, were $54...

Farm Bill Lacks Gravitas; Paying for Change

Farm Bill Lacks Gravitas Farmer protests appear to be exploding everywhere. Of course, in Europe where it is part of the profession. But in India as well where farmers are demanding higher minimum support process. Farmers in the U.S. also want higher guarantees for farm income. Commodity prices...

Farmer/Green Divide

The recent policy reversal in Europe on environmental obligations for farmers is not being welcomed by everyone. Greenpeace warns that excluding farms from emission reductions will ultimately hurt farmers as their crops fail under the burden of climate change. They are also warning that farmers...

The Ashes of EU’s Greens; Redefining Consensus

The Ashes of EU’s Greens There is a lot of finger-pointing in Brussels over responsibility for originally drafting the Green Deal/Farm to Fork debacle, and now its withdrawal. The political nature of the whole exercise was illustrated by EU President Ursula von der Leyen’s rationale...

EU Sobers Up

The EU’s political leaders have made dramatic policy reversals in recent days that reflect a more reasoned approach than in the past. As noted previously, they have scrapped some of the Green Deal/Farm to Fork requirements like quitting pesticides, and today the EU Parliament (EP) approve...

Tariffs are Coming; EU Politicians Cave; Unbridgeable Differences; Flawed Science Bias

Tariffs are Coming While U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised more tariffs if he is elected, border measures against China are likely regardless of this year’s winner of the White House. China has ramped up bank credits to producers of EV’s, batteries, solar, and mi...

Fed Holds Rates: Looking for Confidence Moving Forward

The Federal Reserve left the federal funds rate unchanged this week at the latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).  As WPI reported on 23 January,  … the Federal Funds futures market was pricing in a more than 97 percent chance of the Fed leaving rates uncha...

Bidenomics Analysis; Dollar versus Yuan

Bidenomics Analysis Inflation has helped make President Joe Biden unpopular and he’s fighting back with the accusation of “price gouging” by the grocery business. Food inflation remains stubbornly high but not because of grocery store greed. Grocery store operating profits are...

Innovate, Replicate or Regulate; Trade Policy Bias

Innovate, Replicate or Regulate U.S. Big Tech companies should take a lesson from their Big Ag counterparts – Europe is not your friend. Looking at artificial intelligence, EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager says the "The choice should not be American or American.” Yet t...

Uncertainties Abound

Newly installed Argentine President Javier Milei told elites in Davos last week that they need to rally around capitalism because socialism has never improved the lives of people. His speech was welcomed by some in the audience but not by all back in Argentina. He now faces large protests in Ar...

NGT Controversy

Environmentalists in Europe are reportedly furious over the European Parliament’s Environment Committee approving the use of some new genomic techniques (NGTs) in an unregulated manner. One framing is that the conservative members of the Committee pushed it through, but conservatives comp...

EU Policy Developments; India PSH and MC-13; EPA Regulating Livestock

EU Policy Developments Farmer protests in Europe have increased and some credit the movement with softening Brussels’ views toward Ukrainian grain threatening producers in eastern Europe. However, farmers have also been protesting the Green Deal/Farm to Fork and efforts to change the way...

Changes in U.S. Agricultural Trade

The export of surplus U.S. agricultural production remains hugely important to some crops, especially for cotton and sorghum where over half of output is traded internationally, as well as for soybeans, wheat, and rice. From the 1980’s through 2017, U.S. trade policy was focused on expand...

People In, Pork Out; Prop 12 Int’l Problem; Ceding the Advantage

People In, Pork Out Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California could stop pork from Iowa from coming into the state if it was not produced according to the dictates of Sacramento. This week, the same court ruled that Austin cannot prevent migrants from coming into the state...

Whither Trade

Analysts are intensely studying the changes in trade flows and their composition following the reversal from free trade by the Trump Administration, the concerns about supply chains due to COVID, and now the de-risking of the West from China. Supply chains have gotten slightly shorter. Overall...

Tradition Tackles Progress; Data Confusion

Tradition Tackles Progress At least twelve EU member states are trying to block the introduction of lab-grown meat. The pretense is that such a product “raises ethical, economic, social, and public health questions” but the underlying rationale is that “These practices represe...

Not Magnanimous; Transatlantic Tech Divide; Advice for Europe

Not Magnanimous An AgriPulse poll of geographically dispersed farmers from across the U.S. with at least $100,000 in gross annual income reflects some greed but low compassion. As commodity values decline, farmers want higher reference prices to ensure income support from the government. They w...

Winter Gives Biofuel Boost

A record 1.2 million electric vehicles (EVs) were sold in the U.S. in 2023. EVs hit a record 8.1 percent market share in the fourth quarter. However, also growing fast and having larger sales are hybrid, using a combination of battery and typically fossil fuels. For agricultural producers, rule...

Transatlantic Commonality; Argentina’s NTB’s

Transatlantic Commonality Politico’s senior foreign correspondent Nahal Toosi noted that ambassadors in Washington are warning that U.S. power and influence in the world is declining due to the nation’s intense partisan political divide. But it is not exactly glory days in Europe. F...

Value of Scale Recognized

Agriculture ministers from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia) are asking the European Commission to come up with a solution to the harm they say is being caused by imports of grain from Ukraine. One option is to impose tariffs on Ukraine. However, it is their a...

Greens Whiff; State Aid Impacts

Greens Whiff Farmers in Europe are upset with their policymakers. The French farmers union has just announced it backs the protests being made by German farm groups. Taking a page out of the Biden White House playbook, German Greens are blaming supermarkets for the troubles being faced by farme...

Quackery Has its Limits; Cockroach Amnesia; Identity Budgeting

Quackery Has its Limits  The USMCA panel opining on the Mexican ban on GMO corn has decided it will not accept comments from Canadian NGO groups wanting to support the Mexican position. First, the Canadian’s position in the case is largely amicus curae. Canada is a minor producer of...

Chips War; Domino Effect

Chips War China complained that Washington’s export restrictions on semiconductors and on Chinese telecommunications companies violate WTO principles. There are larger worries than that. China has just taken over the number one position as a global automobile exporter and Washington worri...

Trade Deficit Down, Job Creation Up: A Look Under the Hood

Two recent economic reports have generated attention: the November balance of payments trade deficit and the December payroll report. There are tea leaves to be read for both.    First, the trade deficit for all goods and services in November was down 2 percent, to $63.2 billion. The...

Eyes Open on India

USDA is leading a trade mission to India, noting that it is 1.4 billion people or 18 percent of the global population but accounts for less than one percent of U.S. agricultural exports. Average tariff rates tend to be higher in developing countries and lower in developed countries. But India&r...

Bright Belgian Light; SSA Riddle

Bright Belgian Light According to Euractiv, Belgian Federal Minister David Clarinval said he would emphasize food sovereignty as he assumes the Presidency of the EU’s Agriculture Council for the next six months. He said, “we must provide farmers with the tools to produce sufficient...

PepsiCo, Carrefour and GI’s; ChatGPT Goes Harvard

PepsiCo, Carrefour and GI’s A major story this week is major French retailer Carrefour saying it is dropping PepsiCo products because its prices are too high. It is not unusual for American companies to face attacks from the French but inflation is not a problem that PepsiCo has manifeste...

Russian Agriculture Enigma; Imbalanced Analysis

Russian Agriculture Enigma Among the many elections this year is Russia’s during 15-17 March. Vladimir Putin will be overwhelmingly elected. He has been effectively in control of the country for 23 years. Andrei Kolesnikov at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says that Russia...

Trade is Dead, So is Ag; Siloed America

Trade is Dead, So is Ag The U.S. agricultural trade balance has reversed, going from positive to negative. Industry leaders are arguing that the solution is more trade agreements but that is unlikely. President Biden has pulled back from his pursuit of minimalist trade objectives in the IPEF ta...

2024 Food Industry; Continued Multipolarity; AI Restrictions Emerging

2024 Food Industry Politico says the Biden Administration will crank up its anti-big business efforts for this election year. A long list of anti-trust investigations are coming to fore, including against Big Ag. Targets include the merger of grocery retailers Kroger and Albertsons and stopping...

Old President, Old Allegiances

President Biden sided with the steel workers union and will put Nippon Steel’s purchase of US Steel through the “serious scrutiny” of the Administration’s own Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). As noted previously (Blatant Nationalism), Nippon...

Bitter Problem; Blatant Nationalism

Bitter Problem The U.S. sugar program is an protectionist abomination emanating from a political deal in the 1981 farm bill. Unlike other crops that are subsidized directly by the government, sugar erects restrictive import quotas and then forces American consumers to pay 2-3 times the world pr...

232 Confusion; Green Border Measures

232 Confusion WTO dispute settlement rulings are arcane, highly legalistic, but sometimes contradictory to the layman’s eye. The latest case is a ruling against Turkiye for its retaliation against U.S. Section 232 tariffs against steel and aluminum imports from the Turks. A year ago, a pa...

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