Farm Bill Outtakes: The Senate Agriculture Committee has a draft farm bill for next week's markup, and it reflects some expected changes and some controversial ones. For example, it includes the recent agreement between farm groups and conservationists calling for cross-compliance, and provides southern crop producers with an option to receive reference price support. However, it also proposes means testing crop insurance, which will not go down well with commodity groups. It also would consolidate conservation programs, which is laudable but insufficient reform. The problem with conservation programs is the annual effort by members of Congress to bypass USDA's allocation model in favor of areas of pet focus.Meanwhile, a bill introduced i...
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.