Last week, the House Ag Committee held a hearing, looking at the bankruptcy of MF Global. Tomorrow, the Senate Ag Committee takes its turn to learn first-hand about the bankruptcy and how it affected, and continues to affect MF Global’s customer base. The 1.2-trillion dollars in missing customer funds has left many farmers, ranchers and businesses across America in a cash bind because they depended on MF Global to handle their futures trading business.

Farmers and ranchers rely on futures markets to smooth price volatility and manage the risks that are inherent to production agriculture.  Businesses have confidence in futures investments because of a protection that ensures that customer funds used to guarantee trades must be segregated from the broker’s funds.  This separation of funds protects customers’ margin in the event that their trader defaults or files for bankruptcy.

Even after the House Ag Committee hearing last week, committee chairman Frank Lucas admitted, – there are still more questions than answers about the missing customer funds and there is a great deal more to learn if we are to restore confidence in the futures markets. How much new information will be revealed during tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) hearing remains to be seen.