This morning the House brought up the rule governing debate on amendments to the farm bill. It was immediately met with a point of order, which was raised for being in violation of the Congressional Budget Act. The House approved the final rule and brought the farm bill to the floor a little before 3 p.m. EDT today. The final rule provides for 103 amendments to be in order. As we reported yesterday, Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma) had hoped to keep amendments down to no more than 40. Three amendments -- including one to restore $20.5 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the amendment to strike the dairy language to be offered by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) -- have 20 minutes of debate i...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.