As they begin planning for 2016, many producers are now thinking the big bull market might have been the worst thing to happen to production agriculture.2016 started on a sour note today for farmers. The March corn and wheat futures contracts put in new lows, and the March soybean futures contract dropped to within 8-9 cents of the contract low. 2015 was a terrible year for U.S. farmers as prices continued to collapse. The only good news was that great yields cushioned some of the pain of low prices. It would have been a complete disaster otherwise. Of course there were those pockets of weak yields that didn’t fare very well. The chart below is the latest USDA/ERS forecast for net farm income, which also isn’t pretty:We are starting to rece...
What You Need to Know Today: Grain futures fell hard overnight after the USDA’s Crop Conditions report showed better-than-expected ratings for corn and soybeans, despite difficult weather last week. The Conditions report was even more bearish in light of meaningfully beneficial rains acr...
Key Takeaways: New Mexico’s Clean Transportation Fuel Program expands demand for low-carbon fuels and creates another market for renewable feedstocks, adding incremental pressure to already limited supplies of lower-carbon inputs. Growing competition for waste-based feedstocks such as an...
As WPI reported on 17 July, the recently passed budget reconciliation bill in the House Budget Committee includes $12 billion in emergency farm assistance. This would be the seventh of the past nine years with ad hoc farm payments (FY2018, FY2019, FY2020, FY2022, FY2023, FY2024, and potentially...
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.