Oil versus Corn The White House will host a meeting with U.S. senators next week on biofuels policy. The debate is over two issues: 1) granting waivers to the ethanol blending mandate to refiners; and 2) allowing the year-round sale of 15 percent ethanol-gasoline blends. There is annual appropriations language that allows waivers for small refiners based on “disproportionate economic hardship.” However, some question its methodologies, and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wants to change the language. Others complain that a “hardship” waiver was granted to Carl Icahn, a multi-billionaire. Perhaps to better compete in its political dispute with agriculture, the oil industry has hired Mike Sommers to be the new head o...
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.