In December 2021, USDA Secretary Vilsack urged the industry to “get in a room” to hash out a consensus on addressing dairy policy. This weekend, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) hosted the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) forum in Kansas City. The meeting was convened to discuss reforms to FMMOs to fix shortcomings and unintended consequences of the regulated pricing system – many of which were exposed by the impact of COVID. Prior to the 2018 farm bill, under the FMMO, Class I prices were calculated by using the higher of Class III and IV advanced skim milk prices (SMP). In 2018, that was changed to an average of the two, plus a $0.74 per hundredweight premium. What happened during COVID was that...
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.