The U.S. 2019 planting season is grim, and there is little or no relief in sight based on the latest weather forecasts. The Corn Belt and northern Plains will stay wet and cool for the foreseeable future. Most of the market chatter has been about the potential reduction in U.S. corn planted acres. That is important, but more critical will be the potential impact on corn yields. There is a direct correlation between late dates and lower yields. In addition to concern about how many acres of corn might not get planted, there is also the possibility some might have to be replanted. Today’s crop progress report showed that just 19 percent of the corn has emerged versus the five-year average for this date of 49 percent. Cool temperatur...
Markets are caught between reasons to keep selling and reasons to take another look. Fund liquidation and renewed peace talks are pressuring grains, while fresh export business and some diesel relief offer encouragement. Corn recovered nearly 10 cents from its low to finish higher, while soybea...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.