Cotton Challenge from Brazil: The Senate Agriculture Committee's version of a new cotton program in the 2012 Farm Bill is unlikely to placate Brazil in its successful WTO challenge. The draft bill is still fat with market distorting subsidies. In part this is a negotiating position. Brazil is unlikely to acquiesce to any initial offer by Congress and the U.S. cotton industry. Instead, the negotiations are likely to carry out over several iterations with each side insisting it will take its position back to a dispute settlement panel.U.S. versus EU Policymaking: U.S. farm bills used to involve elongated public drama as politicians haggled over details. The Senate this week revealed how much of that haggling now gets done behind closed door...
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.