We've been following weather and crop planting in North Dakota for the past month because it has been so wet, especially across the northern third of the state. Our estimate has been that there could be as many as 3 million acres in North Dakota not planted because farmers would take the Prevent Plant option under the crop insurance program and we expected 1 million of those acres would be hard red spring wheat. Last Friday's acreage estimates for North Dakota in the table below are with our expectations. USDA's numbers say that a little over 2.2 million acres did not get planted, including 500,000 acres of hard red spring wheat. USDA's surveys were completed in the first days of June. Our opinion is that the final numbers wil...
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...
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.