The thorniest political problem yet in completing a farm bill conference between the House and Senate this summer is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The House bill required that able-bodied adults without dependents work at least part-time to keep their eligibility for SNAP benefits. This created the partisan divide in the House, which was avoided by the Senate when it rejected an amendment that would have added the same language to its farm bill. Now with hard-core advocates against the provision in both chambers as well as for it in the House, the work requirement is a political knot that will have to be untangled. However, given the state of the economy, the debate is becoming increasingly less pertinent to the ope...
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.