The first major attack on Big Ag by New York Times reporter Michael Moss was in his book, "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" (see Ag Perspectives on 21 February 2013). More recently revealing his lack of understanding of agricultural economics, he contacted an advertising agency to find out how to get people to eat more broccoli. While arguing the "deck is stacked against produce farmers" by commodity subsidies and checkoffs that fund the marketing of unhealthy foods, he nonetheless hopes that simply out marketing Big Ag can remake the American diet, though he admits his plan is debatable.Presumably, disseminating information about broccoli's super healthfulness has had some positive effect. According to USDA's Economic Resea...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
Key Takeaways: The tariff burden rose sharply in 2025 and 2026: the effective rate on imports in HTS Chapters 1–24 increased from 1.53 percent in 2024 to 6.11 percent in 2025, before averaging 5.68 percent in January–August 2026. Headline rates tell only part of the story: exemptio...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.