My colleague, Michael Roberts of the University of Hawaii, recently started a new Substack blog called “Grains to Gigawatts.” His first post is an important…
Agricultural productivity gains are the reason why famine and starvation are rare in the modern world. As agricultural economists like to say, problems with malnourishment…
If you want to get a rise out of a farm audience, just mention USDA reports. To people outside of ag this is mystifying. Why…
As I noted in a post a couple of weeks ago, I took a sabbatical leave from Ohio State for the 1993/94 academic year. I…
It would seem that the answer to the question posed in the title is simple. Futures markets develop because there is a need for the…
In my long career as an agricultural economist, one of the things that I take most pride in may surprise you. I am holding it…
Last week, my department head Sarah A. Low dropped this jewel of a picture off at my office. It was in some old files that…
If you wonder why I spent so much time the last few years writing two books focused on speculation in commodity futures markets (my wife…
An interesting new article from Reuters on the current travails of the US renewable diesel industry was published this week. The article is not only…
I believe pictures like those shown below cause no end of confusion with respect to the analysis of grain markets. The first picture is my…