General Comments With a barrage of tweets from participants on Pro Farmer's Midwest crop tour commenting on how bad crops look, futures prices had nowhere to go but up. A consensus is building to the effect that corn and soybean yields will be worse than what USDA estimated in its August WASDE. Back on 10 August when the WASDE was released, USDA cut its national average corn yield estimate to 123.4 bushels per acre, and it reduced the soybean yield to 36.1 bushels per acre. At that time, just 11 days ago, USDA's estimated yield reductions were seen as aggressive. Not so today. With the crop tour reporting seeing evidence that yields are even worse than the poor expectations, analysts are busy cutting yield forecasts and trying to figur...
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.