USDA received a formal hearing request from California Dairies Inc., Land O'Lakes Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America Inc. to establish a Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) for California, although the state currently operates outside of that system.On 5 February 2015, USDA received a formal hearing request from California Dairies Inc., Land O'Lakes Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America Inc. to establish a Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) for California, although the state currently operates outside of that system.FMMO implementation entails USDA setting a minimum milk price that processors must pay to dairy farmers and/or their cooperatives. To determine that price, USDA uses formulas that vary according to how the milk is used. Inputs are w...
What You Need to Know Today: The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.75 to 4.0 percent Wednesday, with two officials dissenting in favor of a 25-basis-point increase. The Fed upgraded its assessment of economic growth from "solid" to "strong" but adopted a more patient approa...
Russian Grain Markets: 19–23 October 2026 The Russian grain market continued its recovery during the week, although prices remained volatile across regions. Wheat was notably bullish, while feed barley and corn were slower to appreciate, primarily because of weaker export demand amid logi...
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.