Over the weeks since the Senate reported out its version of the farm bill, WPI has highlighted some potential amendments that could be offered on the Senate floor: peanuts, dairy and others. Now add to that list crop insurance, the centerpiece of the Senate proposal's risk management portion. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is planning to introduce a cap on premium subsidies that a farmer could receive under the federal crop insurance program. The proposal for the cap is likely to be $40,000.As we reported on 12 April (see WPI), the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report concluding that if a $40,000 limit had been applied to individual farmers' crop insurance premium subsidies, as it is for other farm programs, the federal govern...
What You Need to Know Today: Declining crop conditions ratings and shaky results from the Pro Farmer crop tour sent grains sharply higher on Tuesday. The Pro Farmer tour in Ohio pegged the state yield at 180.18 BPA, about 5.5 BPA below the tour’s 2025 estimate. Similarly, the Pro Farmer...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt is the largest importer of Brazilian maize in the first six months of 2026. Egypt imported about 28.4 percent of maize exports, or about 1.7 million MT. Iran was the third-largest importer at 14.5 percent, or 900,000 MT, fol...
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
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.