A Very Robust Demand Base for Corn & Soybeans
Livestock and ethanol are the goto users of commodities like corn and soybeans. As you'll hear these two sectors have now created a very robust domestic demand base for the crops.
Posts
Sampling Errors Associated with Grain Stocks
USDA tallies the amount of corn available in the United States quarterly. It does this through a survey. However the Grain Stocks report that is developed from the survey data has been suspect for a few years. Listen to a short piece with Scott Irwin to learn more on the sampling errors associated with the amount of corn on hand or watch the longer form unedited video interview.
Twitter, It Really Works!
The experience & success of simply emailing the frosted corn photos to a list of grain analysts had me thinking about social media quite a bit this year. So, I started a twitter account @commodityweek and pretty quickly had about 40 followers. This all before ever mentioning it On Air.
The power of this medium came home when I took a Sunday drive to purposely scout the corn crop in central Illinois. Over the 11 hour, 16 stop, 300 mile drive I tweeted results from each stop and, amazingly, picked up 8 followers! Again, I was using what was in my pocket, and this time a real - if small - video camera. The iPhone photos, and Twitter logged exact locations which allowed me to produce a TV news segment of my ride for air later that week.