USDA delayed its last of the year Crop Progress report until tomorrow due to undefined “system outages.” Private analysts told Reuters that they expect the report to show 33 percent of the winter wheat crop in Good/Excellent conditions, up one point from last week’s report. Based on historical studies, a relatively low-quality condition in the fall is not determinative of yield when the crop is harvested. However, there is a stronger correlation of a lower fall quality rating and the ratio of abandoned acres. Lower quality means that when the plants emerge, fewer will have survived dormancy. However, good spring growing conditions means that those plants still growing can have good yields. There have also been years...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
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.