Farm Bill Angst The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are moving closer to an agreed compromise on the farm bill's new commodity, which would accommodate the House side's desire for target prices offset by a reduced Senate shallow loss provision. However, at least one trade policy expert worries that a simple extension of the 2008 Act would be a safer option from an international standpoint. This is because the shift from green box direct payments to amber box insurance subsidies is likely to invite challenge from WTO partners. It remains unclear whether extension of the 2008 Act or the modified House-Senate proposals would be acceptable to Brazil under the cotton case, though it seems unlikely. Food Safety Standards The U.S. has...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.