Fuel Aid Better than Food Aid President Trump says that larger federal receipts from the higher tariffs on goods imported from China will be used to purchase American farm goods that are then shipped abroad to feed the hungry. The precedent for this idea is Section 32 of the Agriculture Act of 1932, which authorizes the use of customs receipts for such purposes. However, the proposal was met with incredulity, including the circulation of a mock picture with grain silos on the White House lawn. The CME was mixed to lower. A fundamental problem with the plan is its sheer volume. The suggested purchase of $15 billion worth of farm products would swamp international food aid, a system that has been moving away from commodity transfers and tow...
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...
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.