Many of the nation’s agricultural bankers were in Omaha this week for their annual conference. The media was also there interviewing anyone willing to talk about the damage to farm income caused by the various trade wars. As it should, China and the soybean problem garnered the most attention. Several farm marketing advisory services were also there trying to convince the bankers they can offer marketing support to clients. One interesting note among this morning’s news stories about bankers and net farm income was a report that 85 percent of farm bankers believe farmers will have to sell some medium to long-term assets to improve cash flow over the next several years. What’s notable is that this hasn’t already star...
What You Need to Know Today: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secured reelection on Sunday, defeating right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro despite trailing in the first round of voting. The surprise victory triggered a sharp selloff in Brazilian financial market...
The 2026 midterm elections are a week from tomorrow, but early voting has been taking place for weeks. At stake is control of Congress, including the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are contested, and the Senate, where approximately one-third of the seats are up for election. Farm...
Key Takeaways: Total U.S. crop acres (excluding hay) are forecast to expand fractionally this year due to greater oilseed crop and winter wheat plantings. One of the key drivers of this year’s crop outlook is input costs, and crops with a lower cost profile have an advantage in producers...
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.