My father, Jim Irwin, cultivating corn on our Iowa farm in the mid-1940s.
5,000
That’s not a typo, and it’s not clickbait. This week, my book Back to the Futures crossed 5,000 copies sold across print, audio, and ebook versions. When Doug Peterson and I set out on our self-publishing adventure a little over three years ago, I did what any economist would do:…
The New Grain Giants and the USDA
There is a large literature on the accuracy and market impact of USDA crop forecasts for the United States—by one recent count, 77 studies on usda forecast accuracy were published between 1990 and 2023 (Isengildena Massa, Karali, and Irwin, 2024). What is striking is how little analysis has been done…
RIN Prices, Pump Prices, and a Lot of Confusion
Jarrett Renshaw at Reuters has a nice piece this week on challenges in meeting the Trump administration’s aggressive RVOs for biomass-based diesel in 2026 and 2027. The story also discusses a claim that comes up every time RIN prices spike: that record RIN prices drive up what people pay at…
The E15 Bill: Uncertain Benefits vs. Certain Costs
HR 1346 — the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act — passed the House by a narrow margin this week and now goes to the Senate for consideration. The bill does three main things: First, it extends the Clean Air Act’s Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) waiver to E15. Under…
400
This week, I published my 400th farmdoc daily article. Four hundred. It still doesn’t quite feel real to type that number. To put that in perspective: 400 articles works out to roughly 27 per year over the past 15 years — about one every other week, year in and year…
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