Now that the WASDE has come and gone, it’s time for the commodity market analyst community to argue about why USDA’s projections are wrong and what the world will actually look like over the next marketing year. WPI is loath to miss this monthly festival of forecasting, so we offer our thoughts below. Before that, however, we note that while we may have different forecasts than USDA, we greatly appreciate their efforts and readily acknowledge that the entire agricultural industry is better off because of their work. Consequently, rather than offer these thoughts as evidence USDA is “wrong”, we simply throw our predictive hat into the ring alongside USDA’s work and hope you find our results and discussion useful...
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.