The Biden Administration Office of Management and Budget sent a partial budget plan to Capitol Hill this morning. The proposal is an outline of funding requests in annually appropriated programs referred to as discretionary spending. Ongoing programs authorized by permanent legislation, such as farm bill programs, are known as mandatory spending – this request did not cover those mandatory spending accounts. USDA spending breaks down to about 83 percent mandatory and 17 percent discretionary. Within the discretionary total, the largest spending items are WIC, agricultural research, rural development, FDA, foreign food aid and trade, farm assistance loans and salaries, food safety inspection, animal and plant health progra...
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.