Monday's neutral WASDE report generally surprised South American traders. Most trading houses held short positions at the CBOT, but the unexpected strength in CBOT contracts after the report's release caused a drop in the soybean basis in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. More Pressures on Argentine Farmers The Argentine government continues to treat farmers as subordinates who can be coerced into performing the desired action. This week it moved to tighten the lines of credit issued to farmers by the national bank, the primary method used by farmers to finance their planting costs. Borrowing was particularly attractive for them because the government's denial of the true inflation rate (approximately 35 percent) meant the interest...
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.