The Biden Administration last week announced an effort to lower carbon emissions in aviation, targeting a 20 percent drop in aviation emissions by 2030 and the “potential for a fully zero-carbon aviation sector by 2050.” That would be 3 billion gallons annual use by 2030, and potentially 35 billion gallons per year by 2050. Those are ambitious goals, to say the least. The 2030 target for aviation fuels would be a 15 percent expansion of the 2020 (most recent) total RFS biofuel volume, and 60 percent of the “advanced” biofuel volumes (which is the category aviation fuel would fall under). However, not all of the “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF) would come from crop feedstocks, accordin...
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.