USDA released its baseline projections for 2018-2027 last week on the same day that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO). While the USDA baseline projects long-term commodity trends with no domestic or external shocks and a normal weather pattern, the AEO is a modeling of energy markets under various scenarios from high growth to low growth through 2050. However, the AEO does have the average most-likely scenario known as the reference case, which can be compared with USDA’s 10-year baseline. The USDA baseline forecasts corn use for domestic ethanol during the crop year, while AEO forecasts domestic ethanol production in terms of million barrels per day during a calendar year. WPI ha...
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.