Longer Farm Bill Delay: As predicted by Dave Juday in yesterday's report, the Senate farm bill is too weighted down to move quickly. Over 120 amendments were filed for the markup of the Senate Agriculture Committee's 900-page draft 2012 Farm Bill. Moreover, huge funding inequities, whereby Southern crops like cotton and rice are facing 70-80 percent reductions in income transfers based on the January CBO baseline, meant strong opposition from key senators. There are lots of other problems in the bill and they all add up to a longer delay before the bill is actually marked up. The Senate is on recess next week and staff will scramble to try and settle as many differences as possible during that time. However, it is a challenge that may cau...
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
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.