Farm Bill Larder: The Senate Agriculture Committee plans to markup a 2013 Farm Bill before the end of the month, and committee member Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) is likely to add several dubious dairy provisions. One of her complaints is that high feed costs are hurting the competitiveness of her state's dairy farmers — preventing them from being competitive with other states and preventing them from growing their businesses. Her solution is not subsidized feed costs, the purported cause of their troubles, but a proposed guarantee of $6.50/hundredweight margin above feed costs for farms with 200 or fewer cows. The so-called "Dairy Income Fairness Act" is a too-small-to-fail scheme that enables farmers to pay any price for feed, knowin...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.