General Comments Stats Canada released its first estimate of planted crop areas today, and the estimates were pretty much as expected. All wheat acres were put at 24.3 million while canola acres were estimated to be 20.4 million, a new record for canola planted area. However, the trade expected canola to be over 20 million acres. Furthermore, it is expected that high soybean prices this spring (since Stats Canada conducted its survey) will likely encourage Canadian farmers to switch more land to canola.The shoe finally dropped as USDA reported a sale of 485,000 MT of old crop corn to unknown, but it is almost certainly related to the rumored sales to China last week when corn futures prices weakened. The China corn rumors seem to have co...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.