E15: It is 9 April; by 1 May terminals that blend gasoline with ethanol need to be in compliance with summer-grade gasoline specifications that are effective on 1 June. The ethanol industry has pressed EPA for another emergency waiver for year-round E15 use in the summer of 2024. EPA did approve an E15 waiver for eight midwestern states, but that doesn’t go into effect until 2025. Further, that waiver is for states which produce 76 percent of the U.S. ethanol supply but use only 35 percent. The national waiver is much more significant in terms of demand. For the last two years there has been a nationwide waiver, announced at the “11th hour” on 28 April in 2022 and 29 April in 2023. Those benchmark dates are less than three...
The corn and soy complex closed higher, with the wheat market mixed, as winter wheat closed up but spring wheat and livestock ended lower. Part of the strength for corn and soybeans may have been a weather premium, as crop planting has started out fast but warm weather has been slow to develop...
Real GDP grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2026, slightly below the consensus expectation of 2.3 percent but above the 0.5 percent growth in Q4 2025. The GDP number matches the average annualized pace of growth since the peak back in late 2007, right before the Financial P...
Reflect for a moment on what you eat. There is a lot of advice out there in the ether about what you should eat, but really, what do you currently eat and how much? The good people at the USDA have some data for you, to help you answer that question. USDA says that we eat quite a bit of meat. L...
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.