The Senate has entered its second week of farm bill debate. As of this morning, more than 90 amendments were filed. The Committee leadership will meet to deal with those amendments. The Senate did not come into session until 2:30 p.m. today and its first vote was scheduled at 5:30 p.m. on a judicial nomination. That means most of the farm bill debate will get pushed back until tomorrow.The amendments run the gamut, from denying farm program payments to members of Congress who farm, to denying funding for ethanol blender pumps, to establishing conservation compliance on crop insurance to ending the sugar, mohair and newly proposed popcorn programs, to both increasing and reducing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, t...
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...
Russian Grain Markets: 12–16 October 2026 During the week in review, the Russian grain market began recovering after an extended decline driven largely by Black Sea logistics bottlenecks, a good crop and weaker global demand in traditional Russian markets. Russia is beginning to harvest 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.