agriculture of the United States if it ever closer to the technology , with drones monitoring crops and satellites guiding machines for planting is perfectly aligned, but many traders and analysts say all these features do not eliminate the need for an analysis spot of crop to estimate the size and quality of the corn and soybean crops . Last year, these crops totaled $ 49 million and $ 35 billion respectively. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicts record harvests of both corn as soybean, which can prolong the fall in prices of these commodities, which has lasted several years. Therefore, interest in shipping Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour season this week was high. So far, estimates of Pro Farmer for corn yield in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were below projections of the USDA, confirming the suspicions of some analysts that the government forecasts were too optimistic.
” you have a better idea of what’s going on than just reading reports, “said Steve Mathews, the hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp., which participates in the expedition for the second year.
Some analysts say the expedition Pro Farmer has a favorable bias to the producer, publishing conservative estimates that can raise prices. But the consultancy said this week that its estimates were above the projections of the USDA in most cases in the past 15 years.
To reach these projections, 60 producers and traders traveled from Ohio to Minnesota. Another group of 60 went through South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa before meeting with the first group in Minnesota. The data collected result in national estimate, the Pro Farmer discloses on Friday afternoon.
These participants took samples in about 1,400 camps in States which are responsible for approximately 70% of the national production corn and soy. Its most advanced tools were nylon rope rolls used for measurements in cornfields. This represented a change in the routine of several participants in a sector that is increasingly adopting technological tools.
The Planet Labs, for example, launched a series of small satellites that feeds data processing companies and hedge funds with images of fields. “You do not need to go to the field and take measurements,” said Mark Johnson, co-founder and chief executive of Descartes Labs, one of the customers of Planet Labs. “Eventually, computers will always hit and everything will be cheaper, faster and easier.
” The Descartes updated once a week its forecast for the corn harvest. On Tuesday, the company estimated the productivity of 170.4 bushels per acre, below the USDA projection of 175.1 bushels per acre. Stanley Shi, a trader in Beijing on his second expedition, said the Pro Farmer must estimate the yield of about 173 bushels per acre.
Some analysts say the expedition is anachronistic. “It’s like if I wanted to send a letter to you in Chicago and caught a horse to take you there,” said the president of Prime-Ag Consultants brokerage, Chad Henderson. But this opinion finds no echo among the participants from 14 countries and four continents in the expedition this year. “Go to the field means to see something that could never see so accurately in a model,” said Gautier Maupu, the Agritel consulting, Paris. Maupu participated in the first expedition, as well as Natakorn Sereeyotin, commodity buyer of Charoen Pokphand Group, Bangkok. Sereeyotin used his phone to send pictures of corn and soybean grain for his boss. “This is exactly the kind of alternative sources of information we were looking for,” he said.
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