Ellinghuysen.com - 07/29/08 - CFTC to hold Ag Advisory Committee meeting

CFTC to hold Ag Advisory Committee meeting

Monday, July 28, 2008, 3:10 PM

by Peter Shinn

Brownfield

The Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFCT) holds a meeting of its Agricultural Advisory Committee Tuesday in Washington D.C. The first item on the agenda, and a major issue confronting ag producers, is the lack of convergence between futures and cash prices for ag commodities, especially for cotton and wheat.

That lack of convergence emerged as a serious problem for country elevators and other agri-businesses that rely on the convergence of cash and futures prices to hedge their risk and the risk of farmers they do business with when futures prices began skyrocketing higher over the last couple of years. And though wheat futures have drawn down from their all-time-highs in recent months, wheat prices remain as much as $2 below futures contract settlement prices.

Participants in tomorrow's meeting include National Farmers Union President Tom Buis and representatives from the National Grain and Feed association, the CME Group and the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. The entire proceedings of the meeting will be streamed live on the CFTC's web site.