Given the current state of China’s economy and its slowdown, the food inflation spike in January to the highest level since May 2014 plus the notable increases in pork/fresh produce prices raise several interesting issues. Cultural Note and the Market Chinese Holidays Impact Crushing Facilities The annual Lantern Festival, also known as the First Night Festival, occurs today and marks the end of the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) celebrations. The holiday has been celebrated for more than 2,000 years and signals the coming Chinese Lunar Year. With these back-to-back holidays (Spring and Lantern) taking place, the market has been slow as many of the soybean crushing facilities either sharply reduced operations or shut down completely...
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.