Since it is election day in the U.S., we look at how farm income has performed under various presidents. Presidents receive the credit or blame for the overall economy whether it is deserved or not. As the current farm payments attest, presidents likely have more control over farm income than the national accounts. President Franklin Roosevelt entered office with farms imploding from the Dust Bowl and an economic recession, but his Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 turned things around. He served a record 12 years in the White House and gets credit for the largest run of compound annual growth in farm income. His immediate predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had the worst. Richard Nixon had little interest in agriculture, but the second-...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.