Years and years ago (as the tale goes), food stamps were put into the farm bill to create a coalition of lawmakers willing to vote for a bill that would provide direct subsidies to farmers, a dwindling portion of the electorate. For many years, that coalition worked well for its erstwhile engineers. Both sides got what they wanted, no matter the budget situation. As WPI has pointed out many times, deficits don't matter when it comes to farm bills -- despite hand wringing, farm program spending always goes up, even in the worst deficit years (with the exception of 1990 and this upcoming farm bill).Things are different this year. As we previously reported, the 2010 elections so changed the profile of the Democratic Party in Congress that th...
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...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
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.