There’s been a spate of activity on Capitol Hill of late on some high-profile ag policy issues. Below is an end-of-the week recap. E15 Waiver In testimony before the House Ag Committee, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue suggested that EPA was unlikely to finish the waiver for year-round E15 use by the start of the summer driving season (1 June-15 September). That brought a quick response from the agency’s press office, which stated in an email that “EPA is planning on releasing its RVP/RIN [Renewable Fuel Standard Reid Vapor Pressure/Renewable Identification Number] market reform proposal in March, and working expeditiously to propose and finalize the rule consistent with the President’s direction before the start of the...
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.
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...