This past Friday afternoon, USDA announced the third invitation round of the Feedstock Flexibility Program (FFP) to convert federally-held sugar into ethanol. Ethanol mills must bid by 20 November. Offers must be submitted for each lot in its entirety with a price expressed in U.S. dollars per pound that can be up to four decimal places. No bids will be accepted on partial lots. Lot sizes range from 20 million-135 million pounds. There are 503 million pounds of refined beet sugar and 90 million pounds of raw cane sugar for a total of 593 million pounds. That equates to about 42 million gallons of ethanol.Under the FFP, ethanol mills must take title to the sugar within 30 days. The sugar offerer is responsible for storage costs starting 1...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
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.