![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/images\/wiesemeyeropen.jpg\" "\\"Jim")
Noted economist and Washington observer, Jim Wiesemeyer, kicked off the 2006 Agribusiness Forum, November 14-15, in Kansas City. Wiesemeyer and Forum attendees looked at the Global Forces Shaping Agriculture.<\/p>\nNoted economist and Washington observer, Jim Wiesemeyer, kicked off the 2006 Agribusiness Forum, November 14-15, in Kansas City. Wiesemeyer and Forum attendees looked at the Global Forces Shaping Agriculture.<\/p>\n
What are some of the major factors shaping our ag market environment? Wiesemeyer stated that higher interest rates are here and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s having an impact on the housing market and the consumer to a degree. There have been 17 consecutive rate increases that ended in June and now they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on hold. Wiesemeyer believes the next move will be lower rates because of the somewhat weak\u00c2\u00a0economy, the dollar situation, etc. In addition, he says we are in a recession that is hopefully just a growth recession because of the global repercussions of our downward growth.<\/p>\n
Wiesemeyer also discussed the progress and condition of the 2007 crops. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Acreage volatility is the biggest market factor and has been for the last 2 months,” says\u00c2\u00a0Wiesemeyer.\u00c2\u00a0He predicts it will be a roller coaster ride in the spring as the market tries to bid the adequate amount of corn acres, how few soybean acres we can deal with, and the price of wheat because of the considerable increase\u00c2\u00a0in the number of acres\u00c2\u00a0of wheat.<\/p>\n
He predicts that the prospects for agriculture remain favorable over the next five years. Wiesemeyer says that agriculture as an energy crop is here to stay, but the renewable fuel demand will force significant realignment\u00c2\u00a0with energy prices remaining a wild card. He also predicts that ethanol production will increase 85% over the next five years and corn utilized for ethanol could increase 60%.<\/p>\n
One fundamental change that should be watched is that for the first time foreigners will sell\u00c2\u00a0more to the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0than U.S. citizens provide revenue to the government. Within the next 15-20 years, China will surpass the U.S. on GDP.<\/p>\n
Jim Wiesemeyer is Vice President of Policy and Trade Issues for Informa Economics Inc.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Washington, D.C. office. He is also the Washington consultant to the Pro Farmer<\/em> newsletter. Besides writing for Informa Economics\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 daily Morning Comments<\/em>, Jim has a column, Inside Washington Today<\/em>, on AgWeb.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Noted economist and Washington observer, Jim Wiesemeyer, kicked off the 2006 Agribusiness Forum, November 14-15, in Kansas City. Wiesemeyer and Forum attendees looked at the Global Forces Shaping Agriculture. What are some of the major factors shaping our ag market environment? Wiesemeyer stated that higher interest rates are here and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s having an impact on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-agribusiness-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}