Weather market is a term most applicable during times when prices are driven primarily by fear of what an extended period of adverse weather conditions might do to crop yields and production levels. Reaction to such potential impact is always influenced by market perceptions about supply and demand. It seems safe to declare that corn and soy futures have metastasized into a full blown weather market. This could perhaps include wheat futures in the sense that forecast weather conditions do not appear favorable for U.S. spring wheat or western white wheat, but those seem small considerations for now in another year of record or near-record world wheat production. One might of course ask, when is it not a weather market? Weather is always a ke...
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.