With the budget battles, class warfare is emerging as a major theme for the 2012 election campaign. There is debate about raising taxes like the estate tax, which hits farms hard; or increasing capital gains taxes, which also hits the sale of farm land; or cutting spending, which also hits crop farms that are under programs. And then there is the rhetoric of rich versus poor, and the call for taxing the rich and "millionaires." Of course, though it is a populist theme generally assumed to be targeted at "Wall Street" and "Corporate America," how one defines a "millionaire" has not really been precisely prescribed. Is it by earned income? Is it by held assets? Is it a combination of both? Is it earned or inherited?With all that rhetoric, w...
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.