Fed cattle market issues continue to be the top focus in overall agriculture policy. There were three key developments this week. First, yesterday Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) sent a letter to Secretary Vilsack urging USDA to withhold FSIS inspection to enforce and leverage antitrust investigations, evidently even alleged problems. Hawley’s letter states: Federal statute provides you with robust authority to revoke inspection services following convictions for fraudulent behavior in the marketplace. Therefore, as a complement to any current, ongoing investigations with the Department of Justice concerning violations of the provisions of the Packers and Stockyards Act,[9] you must also aggressively use this inspection autho...
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
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.