Former baseball great Yogi Berra, oft quoted for his malapropisms, once said, "if you come to a fork in the road, take it." That appears to be what the House of Representatives will do with the 2013 Farm Bill. One path of the fork leads to a stand-alone farm program bill and the other to a stand-alone nutrition bill. Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma) said he'd go along with the splitting of the farm bill into farm programs and nutrition programs if the House leadership can get the votes to get it passed. He was previously opposed to the idea. Representative Marlin Stutzman (R-Indiana) and Representative Tim Heulskamp (R-Kansas), the two primary proponents of that plan and a current Agriculture Committee me...
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.