The House Energy and Commerce Committee is continuing its review of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Last week it released a third white paper on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts. To date, the committee has issued one on the blend wall (see WPI 22 March) and one on food and feed versus fuel (see WPI 25 April).For each paper, the committee issue questions, circulates them widely among all stakeholders and provides a 60-day comment period. From the responses, the committee staff generates a white paper that will serve to try to define the key issues.The latest paper includes the following questions: Is the RFS reducing GHG emissions below that of baseline petroleum-derived fuels? Is the RFS incentivizin...
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
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.