R-CALF Proposes Changes to Cattle Contracts
In a recent social media post, R-CALF unveiled its latest cattle market plan: “contracts that bind producers before establishing a base price, then tie that price to future negotiated cash transactions, should be prohibited.” That proposal aligns with recent legislation by Represent...
Do Russia’s Northern Grain Exports Matter?
Key Takeaways: Russia recently said it would convert existing export terminals in the Baltic and Arctic Seas to handle grain as the Black and Azov Seas remain closed to maritime trade. Futures markets reacted negatively to this news, but does the conversion matter to short-term and long-...
Energy Markets and the Slowly Disappearing Diesel Export Ban Proposal
There was encouraging news over the weekend: the White House may reject the misguided idea on Capitol Hill to ban U.S. diesel exports. What WPI has noted previously was perhaps best put by a Department of Energy report of 2022, under the Biden administration: Petroleum liquids markets are globa...
How Comparative Advantage Shapes Global Trade
Key Takeaways: Comparative advantage encourages countries to specialize in goods they can produce at a lower opportunity cost and rely on trade for others. Differences in climate, land, infrastructure, and technology help determine where agricultural commodities can be produced most efficientl...
Policy Quick Hits: Mexico, Ad Hoc Farm Assistance, Ultra-Processed Foods
Mexico Trade Deal The Trump Administration is looking for a win before the November midterm elections, now just five weeks away, especially as trade relations with Canada worsen and there is now a truce with China. The U.S. has made it clear to Mexican officials that it wants a deal with Mexico...
U.S.-China Deal Delivers Tariff Relief, but Little for Soybeans
Key Takeaways: The U.S.-China agreement lowers tariffs on several U.S. agricultural products, but the lack of additional soybean commitments or greater certainty surrounding China’s existing 25 MMT purchase pledge made the deal a slight disappointment. Lower tariffs on U.S. corn are unli...
Cow-Calf Market Outlook
The heat of summer is now transitioning into more moderate temperatures, and the next two months have the busiest marketing periods of the year for replacement cattle. Weather always influences the replacement cattle market, and the primary grain belt in the Southern Plains, where many cattle a...
Diesel Fuel Costs, One Acre at a Time
Key Takeaways: Diesel accounts for about 64 percent of U.S. farm fuel spending. For farmers, the pressing question is what a higher price adds to each field operation. Iowa farm diesel averaged $5.50/gallon in September, compared with the $2.89/gallon Iowa State assumed for its February machin...
Bad Ideas Redux
It’s often said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. If only humanity could stop repeating the worst parts of our historic verse. Politicians, again at the center of this week’s follies, have found a way to make old mistakes sound new: announce them at a pr...
Livestock Round Up: Quick Hits – Elections, Beef Imports, Xi Meeting and ICE
Officials from the Trump Administration are reportedly considering rolling back the Administration’s beef import plan as there is a growing panic about the midterm elections. The proposal to reduce the 300,000 MT of beef imports – 100,000 MT for September – is being discussed...
The Farm at the Edge of the World: American Agriculture and a Global Reckoning
Key Takeaways: The United States shifted from a decades-long agricultural trade surplus to a growing deficit, reaching roughly forty-one to forty-four billion dollars in recent fiscal years, a structural change rather than a cyclical dip. Brazil has overtaken the United States as the leading s...
China’s Push for Corn Self-Sufficiency
Key Takeaways: China has made significant progress toward corn self-sufficiency, with production projected to reach a record 307.0 MMT in 2026/27 while imports have fallen sharply from their 29.5 MMT peak in 2020/21. Strengthening food security has become an important priority for China, with...
Fed’s Warsh Defies Trump on Short-Term Monetary Policy Move
Last week, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage point to a target range of 3.75 to 4 percent. That was the first rate hike since mid-2023, and the vote was unanimous. President Trump, who nominated Kevin Warsh in March...
Higher Interest Rates Put More Pressure on Farm Margins
Key Takeaways: Higher interest rates increase the cost of financing agricultural production, reducing farm margins without providing any corresponding increase in production or revenue. The financial impact of higher rates varies considerably by operation, with highly leveraged producers and t...
Senate Moves Farm Bill, but That May Be Not Enough
Last week, the Senate Ag Committee passed the farm bill on a party-line vote upon the return of Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), who missed the vote on 6 August (see WPI coverage here) when it failed by a similar party-line vote, 10-11. Democrats held the...
Fertilizer Shock: Concentration, Competition and the Cartel Question
What You Need to Know: U.S. fertilizer production is highly concentrated, but concentration alone does not establish that producers are operating as a cartel. Imports introduce competition unevenly: they supply nearly all U.S. potash consumption but play much smaller roles in domestic ammonia...
Managed Money Makes a Record Bullish Bet on Agriculture
Key Takeaways: Managed money is holding more than one million net-long contracts across agricultural markets, with corn, soybeans, and soymeal all reaching record net-long positions in September. Fundamental concerns surrounding yields, supplies, and global availability have helped justify the...
Another Try at Ag Labor Legislation
What You Need to Know: H-2A has become a principal agricultural labor channel: certifications increased from fewer than 117,000 in 2014 to 398,258 in 2025 and continued to rise in 2026. The proposed Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA) would open H-2A to year-round operations and...
USDA Reports - The Real Divide in American Agriculture Isn't Who Has the Data — It's Who Can Afford to Read It
Key Takeaways: USDA data access is equal; the ability to use it is not. Larger operations can afford experts who turn public reports into business decisions. Analytical capacity is the true advantage. Forecasts matter only when converted into profit, purchasing, and risk-management decisions...
Cow-Calf Profit Expectations Weaken Further
Key Takeaways: Expected returns to production for U.S. cow-calf producers have shifted lower from prior forecasts as cattle values fall and feed costs rise. Producer revenues are forecast 1 percent below our August outlook and will be 1.2 percent below 2025 levels. Feed costs have lessen...
Time Running Out: Fly In for the Farm Bill, North American Trade
The Senate will reconvene today after a late August recess and will adjourn in early October, in about 3 to 4 weeks. The farm bill will move front and center on the agenda. A major fly-in is scheduled for today and Tuesday, with the goal of hitting all Senate offices. Groups participating in th...
The Risk Isn’t Over for Corn and Soy Yields
Commodity markets – being composed primarily of human beings – reflect the impatience and forever forward-looking nature of humans. In the present case, this means that while the September WASDE offered some much-needed and much-desired updates, markets are now focused on that etern...
CPI, PPI, Jobs Report Adding Up to Rate Hike from FOMC
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported this morning that August’s rate of inflation was 0.4 percent, holding steady at 3.4 percent for the year. That matched analysts’ pre-report expectations and was even with July’s rate of 3.4 percent. For the year, food was up 2.7 pe...
USDA and Sugar: An Arranged Marriage
USDA and sugar have been married since 1934. With such an old marriage, there are all manner of promises, obligations and compromises. There are disagreements and arguments, and occasional calls for divorce, but they lack real conviction. We outsiders find it all so difficult to understand. The...
Remembering 9-11
Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, the U.S. experienced one of the most tragic and influential days in the nation’s history. The events of that day would spark great unity, and later division, as our nation grappled with terrorism’s fallout. The days and weeks immediately...
Implications of $100+ per Barrel Crude Oil on Agriculture
Key Takeaways: The significance of $100-per-barrel crude depends largely on how long prices remain elevated, as sustained high energy costs are more likely to influence longer-term agricultural decisions. Higher crude oil prices raise farm production costs most directly through diesel, while a...
Dairy Feed Cost Volatility and Margins
Key Takeaways: Corn and soybean meal markets are tightening together for the first time in more than a year, driven by lower U.S. yield expectations and continued Chinese soybean demand. A strong El Niño is replacing last year’s La Niña, shifting crop risk across the Americ...
U.S. Labor Day Holiday
The U.S. will observe Labor Day on Monday, 7 September. U.S. markets and the WPI office will be closed that day. The next edition of Ag Perspectives will be published Tuesday, 8 September...
Beef Trim Prices Set to Fall Even Without Added Imports
Key Takeaways: Drought and changes to the multi-year trend in cow slaughter and retention have the potential to dramatically alter beef trim supplies and pricing, and WPI specifically models three different drought scenarios for fall 2026. Based on our models, WPI expects 90 percent lean...
Triangulating China, U.S. and Brazil’s Chicken Exports
Brazil’s broiler exports are up 29.9 percent by volume in July and up 43.3 percent in value, and for the January through July period, exports rose 15.2 percent by volume and 19.3 percent in value. China was the top customer in July with 75,000 MT after being closed in July 2025 due to HPA...
EPA Grants 29 SREs, but Reallocation is the Story
Key Takeaways: EPA granted full or partial Small Refinery Exemptions to 29 of the 34 petitions under consideration, removing approximately 1.76 billion RINs from 2025 compliance obligations, roughly 770 million more RINs than EPA had previously anticipated. The larger exemption total does not...
Readout on the Fed’s Jackson Hole Meeting
The Federal Reserve Board holds an annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, each year about this time, and this year’s meeting is now. It’s always a “must-watch” event, but this year, amidst persistent inflation and with a new Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, it drew additiona...
An Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Many Legal and Economic Canyons
You cannot escape the vortex of opinions about water scarcity in the Western United States, especially in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin. Agriculture is the villain in many of these editorials. Agriculture uses too much water, so it should use less, is the refrain. We all wish it was...
Why U.S. Lamb Prices Are Import-Anchored and Why Carcass Divergence Matters
Key Takeaways: Imports supply 70–75 percent of U.S. lamb disappearance, with Australia and New Zealand accounting for nearly all imported volume. The deficit is structural, not cyclical: domestic production cannot scale quickly enough to displace imports or reset the market’s refer...
Cow-Calf Profit Outlook Falls Amid Shifting Economics
Key Takeaways: Expected returns to production for U.S. cow-calf producers have shifted lower from prior forecasts as cattle values fall and feed costs rise. Producer revenues are forecast 4–5 percent below our July outlook and will be 3 percent below 2025 levels. Costs are quickly...
Canada Imposes Retaliatory Tariffs
Today, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on 700 products exported from the U.S., aiming to match “dollar for dollar” the duties imposed on Canada. They will take effect on 8 September (see the complete list here). 50 percent tariffs: steel, aluminum, furniture, clothing, video g...
The Netherlands: An Unlikely Agricultural Powerhouse
Key Takeaways: Despite its limited farmland, the Netherlands is a major agricultural exporter, focusing on high-value products such as dairy, flowers, meat, and vegetables. The Port of Rotterdam makes the Netherlands a major European agricultural trade hub, supporting significant processing an...
President Trump Announces Move on Over Quota Beef Tariffs - Again
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
How Much for That Bushel of Credibility?
In agriculture and food processing, we think a lot about infrastructure: transportation and storage, processing and packaging, distribution and delivery. It is a physical system of roads, railroads, and rivers; concrete and steel storage; processing plants, warehouses, and machinery; and, event...
USMCA 11th Hour and New Tariffs for Canada Not Over
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
Fertilizer’s Bullish Outlook for 2027
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
Beef Capacity Disappearing
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
Inflation: Mixed Bag with CPI on Target and PPI Down and Iran War Hovering
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
Agricultural Precision Technology: A Look Back and Forward
We have described the long-term investment climate in crop and livestock production, using data primarily from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The data provided background on the current investment climate and outlook for agricultural capital formation. Our conclusion was that investment...
Livestock Roundup: Livestock WASDE
Yesterday, the USDA released its monthly World Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), forecasting tighter beef and pork supplies and growing broiler supplies, resulting in a tighter red meat supply. Broiler production, however, continues to grow and is forecast to be up more than 3 percent. Beef...
Trade and Tariffs’ Effect on GDP for First Half of 2026
The trade deficit contracted slightly to $73.3 billion in June, a break from the volatility that has underscored international trade over the past year. Despite the small change, there was plenty of activity behind the scenes: imports fell $7.3 billion, led by crude oil, reflecting cheaper crud...
Senate Farm Bill: What’s Next?
Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas) has urged farmers to apply pressure on the failed farm bill during the August recess. His intent is to hold another vote on the legislation as soon as possible upon the Senate’s return from a five-week break on 14 September. From a parliamentary perspecti...
Senate Farm Bill Derailed over SNAP
Yesterday the Senate Agriculture Committee held its markup of the “skinny” farm bill, and it was derailed over Democratic opposition to plans for imposing food stamp costs on state governments. The Democrats pushed back on a provision that required states to pick up a larger share o...
R-CALF Proposes Changes to Cattle Contracts
In a recent social media post, R-CALF unveiled its latest cattle market plan: “contracts that bind producers before establishing a base price, then tie that price to future negotiated cash transactions, should be prohibited.” That proposal aligns with recent legislation by Represent...
Do Russia’s Northern Grain Exports Matter?
Key Takeaways: Russia recently said it would convert existing export terminals in the Baltic and Arctic Seas to handle grain as the Black and Azov Seas remain closed to maritime trade. Futures markets reacted negatively to this news, but does the conversion matter to short-term and long-...
Energy Markets and the Slowly Disappearing Diesel Export Ban Proposal
There was encouraging news over the weekend: the White House may reject the misguided idea on Capitol Hill to ban U.S. diesel exports. What WPI has noted previously was perhaps best put by a Department of Energy report of 2022, under the Biden administration: Petroleum liquids markets are globa...
How Comparative Advantage Shapes Global Trade
Key Takeaways: Comparative advantage encourages countries to specialize in goods they can produce at a lower opportunity cost and rely on trade for others. Differences in climate, land, infrastructure, and technology help determine where agricultural commodities can be produced most efficientl...
Policy Quick Hits: Mexico, Ad Hoc Farm Assistance, Ultra-Processed Foods
Mexico Trade Deal The Trump Administration is looking for a win before the November midterm elections, now just five weeks away, especially as trade relations with Canada worsen and there is now a truce with China. The U.S. has made it clear to Mexican officials that it wants a deal with Mexico...
U.S.-China Deal Delivers Tariff Relief, but Little for Soybeans
Key Takeaways: The U.S.-China agreement lowers tariffs on several U.S. agricultural products, but the lack of additional soybean commitments or greater certainty surrounding China’s existing 25 MMT purchase pledge made the deal a slight disappointment. Lower tariffs on U.S. corn are unli...
Cow-Calf Market Outlook
The heat of summer is now transitioning into more moderate temperatures, and the next two months have the busiest marketing periods of the year for replacement cattle. Weather always influences the replacement cattle market, and the primary grain belt in the Southern Plains, where many cattle a...
Diesel Fuel Costs, One Acre at a Time
Key Takeaways: Diesel accounts for about 64 percent of U.S. farm fuel spending. For farmers, the pressing question is what a higher price adds to each field operation. Iowa farm diesel averaged $5.50/gallon in September, compared with the $2.89/gallon Iowa State assumed for its February machin...
Bad Ideas Redux
It’s often said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. If only humanity could stop repeating the worst parts of our historic verse. Politicians, again at the center of this week’s follies, have found a way to make old mistakes sound new: announce them at a pr...
Livestock Round Up: Quick Hits – Elections, Beef Imports, Xi Meeting and ICE
Officials from the Trump Administration are reportedly considering rolling back the Administration’s beef import plan as there is a growing panic about the midterm elections. The proposal to reduce the 300,000 MT of beef imports – 100,000 MT for September – is being discussed...
The Farm at the Edge of the World: American Agriculture and a Global Reckoning
Key Takeaways: The United States shifted from a decades-long agricultural trade surplus to a growing deficit, reaching roughly forty-one to forty-four billion dollars in recent fiscal years, a structural change rather than a cyclical dip. Brazil has overtaken the United States as the leading s...
China’s Push for Corn Self-Sufficiency
Key Takeaways: China has made significant progress toward corn self-sufficiency, with production projected to reach a record 307.0 MMT in 2026/27 while imports have fallen sharply from their 29.5 MMT peak in 2020/21. Strengthening food security has become an important priority for China, with...
Fed’s Warsh Defies Trump on Short-Term Monetary Policy Move
Last week, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage point to a target range of 3.75 to 4 percent. That was the first rate hike since mid-2023, and the vote was unanimous. President Trump, who nominated Kevin Warsh in March...
Higher Interest Rates Put More Pressure on Farm Margins
Key Takeaways: Higher interest rates increase the cost of financing agricultural production, reducing farm margins without providing any corresponding increase in production or revenue. The financial impact of higher rates varies considerably by operation, with highly leveraged producers and t...
Senate Moves Farm Bill, but That May Be Not Enough
Last week, the Senate Ag Committee passed the farm bill on a party-line vote upon the return of Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), who missed the vote on 6 August (see WPI coverage here) when it failed by a similar party-line vote, 10-11. Democrats held the...
Fertilizer Shock: Concentration, Competition and the Cartel Question
What You Need to Know: U.S. fertilizer production is highly concentrated, but concentration alone does not establish that producers are operating as a cartel. Imports introduce competition unevenly: they supply nearly all U.S. potash consumption but play much smaller roles in domestic ammonia...
Managed Money Makes a Record Bullish Bet on Agriculture
Key Takeaways: Managed money is holding more than one million net-long contracts across agricultural markets, with corn, soybeans, and soymeal all reaching record net-long positions in September. Fundamental concerns surrounding yields, supplies, and global availability have helped justify the...
Another Try at Ag Labor Legislation
What You Need to Know: H-2A has become a principal agricultural labor channel: certifications increased from fewer than 117,000 in 2014 to 398,258 in 2025 and continued to rise in 2026. The proposed Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA) would open H-2A to year-round operations and...
USDA Reports - The Real Divide in American Agriculture Isn't Who Has the Data — It's Who Can Afford to Read It
Key Takeaways: USDA data access is equal; the ability to use it is not. Larger operations can afford experts who turn public reports into business decisions. Analytical capacity is the true advantage. Forecasts matter only when converted into profit, purchasing, and risk-management decisions...
Cow-Calf Profit Expectations Weaken Further
Key Takeaways: Expected returns to production for U.S. cow-calf producers have shifted lower from prior forecasts as cattle values fall and feed costs rise. Producer revenues are forecast 1 percent below our August outlook and will be 1.2 percent below 2025 levels. Feed costs have lessen...
Time Running Out: Fly In for the Farm Bill, North American Trade
The Senate will reconvene today after a late August recess and will adjourn in early October, in about 3 to 4 weeks. The farm bill will move front and center on the agenda. A major fly-in is scheduled for today and Tuesday, with the goal of hitting all Senate offices. Groups participating in th...
The Risk Isn’t Over for Corn and Soy Yields
Commodity markets – being composed primarily of human beings – reflect the impatience and forever forward-looking nature of humans. In the present case, this means that while the September WASDE offered some much-needed and much-desired updates, markets are now focused on that etern...
CPI, PPI, Jobs Report Adding Up to Rate Hike from FOMC
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported this morning that August’s rate of inflation was 0.4 percent, holding steady at 3.4 percent for the year. That matched analysts’ pre-report expectations and was even with July’s rate of 3.4 percent. For the year, food was up 2.7 pe...
USDA and Sugar: An Arranged Marriage
USDA and sugar have been married since 1934. With such an old marriage, there are all manner of promises, obligations and compromises. There are disagreements and arguments, and occasional calls for divorce, but they lack real conviction. We outsiders find it all so difficult to understand. The...
Remembering 9-11
Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, the U.S. experienced one of the most tragic and influential days in the nation’s history. The events of that day would spark great unity, and later division, as our nation grappled with terrorism’s fallout. The days and weeks immediately...
Implications of $100+ per Barrel Crude Oil on Agriculture
Key Takeaways: The significance of $100-per-barrel crude depends largely on how long prices remain elevated, as sustained high energy costs are more likely to influence longer-term agricultural decisions. Higher crude oil prices raise farm production costs most directly through diesel, while a...
Dairy Feed Cost Volatility and Margins
Key Takeaways: Corn and soybean meal markets are tightening together for the first time in more than a year, driven by lower U.S. yield expectations and continued Chinese soybean demand. A strong El Niño is replacing last year’s La Niña, shifting crop risk across the Americ...
U.S. Labor Day Holiday
The U.S. will observe Labor Day on Monday, 7 September. U.S. markets and the WPI office will be closed that day. The next edition of Ag Perspectives will be published Tuesday, 8 September...
Beef Trim Prices Set to Fall Even Without Added Imports
Key Takeaways: Drought and changes to the multi-year trend in cow slaughter and retention have the potential to dramatically alter beef trim supplies and pricing, and WPI specifically models three different drought scenarios for fall 2026. Based on our models, WPI expects 90 percent lean...
Triangulating China, U.S. and Brazil’s Chicken Exports
Brazil’s broiler exports are up 29.9 percent by volume in July and up 43.3 percent in value, and for the January through July period, exports rose 15.2 percent by volume and 19.3 percent in value. China was the top customer in July with 75,000 MT after being closed in July 2025 due to HPA...
EPA Grants 29 SREs, but Reallocation is the Story
Key Takeaways: EPA granted full or partial Small Refinery Exemptions to 29 of the 34 petitions under consideration, removing approximately 1.76 billion RINs from 2025 compliance obligations, roughly 770 million more RINs than EPA had previously anticipated. The larger exemption total does not...
Readout on the Fed’s Jackson Hole Meeting
The Federal Reserve Board holds an annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, each year about this time, and this year’s meeting is now. It’s always a “must-watch” event, but this year, amidst persistent inflation and with a new Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, it drew additiona...
An Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Many Legal and Economic Canyons
You cannot escape the vortex of opinions about water scarcity in the Western United States, especially in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin. Agriculture is the villain in many of these editorials. Agriculture uses too much water, so it should use less, is the refrain. We all wish it was...
Why U.S. Lamb Prices Are Import-Anchored and Why Carcass Divergence Matters
Key Takeaways: Imports supply 70–75 percent of U.S. lamb disappearance, with Australia and New Zealand accounting for nearly all imported volume. The deficit is structural, not cyclical: domestic production cannot scale quickly enough to displace imports or reset the market’s refer...
Cow-Calf Profit Outlook Falls Amid Shifting Economics
Key Takeaways: Expected returns to production for U.S. cow-calf producers have shifted lower from prior forecasts as cattle values fall and feed costs rise. Producer revenues are forecast 4–5 percent below our July outlook and will be 3 percent below 2025 levels. Costs are quickly...
Canada Imposes Retaliatory Tariffs
Today, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on 700 products exported from the U.S., aiming to match “dollar for dollar” the duties imposed on Canada. They will take effect on 8 September (see the complete list here). 50 percent tariffs: steel, aluminum, furniture, clothing, video g...
The Netherlands: An Unlikely Agricultural Powerhouse
Key Takeaways: Despite its limited farmland, the Netherlands is a major agricultural exporter, focusing on high-value products such as dairy, flowers, meat, and vegetables. The Port of Rotterdam makes the Netherlands a major European agricultural trade hub, supporting significant processing an...
President Trump Announces Move on Over Quota Beef Tariffs - Again
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
How Much for That Bushel of Credibility?
In agriculture and food processing, we think a lot about infrastructure: transportation and storage, processing and packaging, distribution and delivery. It is a physical system of roads, railroads, and rivers; concrete and steel storage; processing plants, warehouses, and machinery; and, event...
USMCA 11th Hour and New Tariffs for Canada Not Over
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
Fertilizer’s Bullish Outlook for 2027
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
Beef Capacity Disappearing
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
Inflation: Mixed Bag with CPI on Target and PPI Down and Iran War Hovering
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
Agricultural Precision Technology: A Look Back and Forward
We have described the long-term investment climate in crop and livestock production, using data primarily from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The data provided background on the current investment climate and outlook for agricultural capital formation. Our conclusion was that investment...
Livestock Roundup: Livestock WASDE
Yesterday, the USDA released its monthly World Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), forecasting tighter beef and pork supplies and growing broiler supplies, resulting in a tighter red meat supply. Broiler production, however, continues to grow and is forecast to be up more than 3 percent. Beef...
Trade and Tariffs’ Effect on GDP for First Half of 2026
The trade deficit contracted slightly to $73.3 billion in June, a break from the volatility that has underscored international trade over the past year. Despite the small change, there was plenty of activity behind the scenes: imports fell $7.3 billion, led by crude oil, reflecting cheaper crud...
Senate Farm Bill: What’s Next?
Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas) has urged farmers to apply pressure on the failed farm bill during the August recess. His intent is to hold another vote on the legislation as soon as possible upon the Senate’s return from a five-week break on 14 September. From a parliamentary perspecti...
Senate Farm Bill Derailed over SNAP
Yesterday the Senate Agriculture Committee held its markup of the “skinny” farm bill, and it was derailed over Democratic opposition to plans for imposing food stamp costs on state governments. The Democrats pushed back on a provision that required states to pick up a larger share o...