China now consumes about half of the world’s pork and has a growing demand into the future that can’t be sustained by small farms that also have an outsized environmental footprint. China Could Emerge as Top Pork Importer As previously reported (see Ag Perspectives, 29 December 2015), the Chinese government started withdrawing licenses in 2014 from about 30 percent of the country’s feed mills in an effort to support greater food safety. Likewise, many midsized hog breeding operations, especially around rivers and other water sources, have been shut down. In both feed manufacturing and livestock feeding, the Chinese government’s 2011-2015 plan explicitly called for decreasing the number of small operations and expanding the “above scale” f...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
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.