The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN produces a lot of data that could be useful, if it were accurate. The problems in the data have been ongoing for years and there is no effort to fix it. The gaps and flaws are readily apparent in the price database where data is either misreported or revealing of the adverse impacts of border measures. The data is always old, with 2017 the most recent available now. The problem of data being completely missing often involves developing countries, but not always. A search for major grain prices from Argentina and Brazil finds them missing, but Argentina reported beef prices for that year while France did not. Turkey reported that the farmgate value of its sunflower crop in 2...
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.