World Perspectives

Debt Leverage Volatility; Land Ownership Focus; Speculators in Detention

Debt Leverage Volatility Markets hate uncertainty but the upcoming hardball political play in Washington is as transparent as cellophane. Congressional Democrats are going to put $3.5 trillion worth of deficit spending and policy dreams into a legislative package that they hope to steamroll over Republicans using the budget reconciliation process. The only leverage Republicans hold to prevent such a massive change in government policy and spending is the need to legislatively raise the official sanctioned amount of debt held by taxpayers. Failing to raise the debt ceiling would place taxpayers in default and will be framed as reckless by the Democrats. Ultimately, the debt ceiling will be raised but in small increments over time so that it...

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livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins finally turned positive last week, the first time packers have made money killing cattle since last October. Margins swung dramatically from a -$131/head loss the prior week to a $15/head gain to close out June. The profits came from the sharp rally in beef prices, a $5/cwt...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: USDA Reports Offer Few Surprises, Weather Dominates Trade Outlook

The USDA’s Grain Stocks and Acreage reports dominated the CBOT’s attention on Monday with the Noon ET release of both datasets driving the day’s action. There were relatively few surprises in the report but minor deviations from expectations helped create support in new crop s...

Un-Trade Agreements; Ag in Big Beautiful Bill; CAP Controversy

Un-Trade Agreements It did not take long for Canadian officials to reverse their digital services tax after President Trump threatened to end trade negotiations. Canada is second only to Mexico in terms of trade dependence on the U.S. Many Canadian producers are already hurting from trade sanct...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins finally turned positive last week, the first time packers have made money killing cattle since last October. Margins swung dramatically from a -$131/head loss the prior week to a $15/head gain to close out June. The profits came from the sharp rally in beef prices, a $5/cwt...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: USDA Reports Offer Few Surprises, Weather Dominates Trade Outlook

The USDA’s Grain Stocks and Acreage reports dominated the CBOT’s attention on Monday with the Noon ET release of both datasets driving the day’s action. There were relatively few surprises in the report but minor deviations from expectations helped create support in new crop s...

Un-Trade Agreements; Ag in Big Beautiful Bill; CAP Controversy

Un-Trade Agreements It did not take long for Canadian officials to reverse their digital services tax after President Trump threatened to end trade negotiations. Canada is second only to Mexico in terms of trade dependence on the U.S. Many Canadian producers are already hurting from trade sanct...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 30 June)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

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From WPI Consulting

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.

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