Projections

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Last week the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) released updated projections.

I continue to be amazed by projections – most are usually wrong but, sometimes a guess is all anyone can find.

Taking the FAPRI numbers for milk, corn and soy, I pasted them to a spreadsheet. Over the time period, through 2014, the average deviation in price for milk is 8.3 times the amount the amount for corn. Why the volatility for milk? FAPRI offers no explanations.

Then when the numbers are sorted, the years come out identical for corn and milk – pretty close for soy.

Naturally, I had to take a look at USDA’s projection released last February. USDA, at that time, projected all milk price of $15.47 per hundredweight. The difference is $6,184,750,000 and that is real money, but, it is not their money.