The Japanese refuse to liberalize rice imports, the Americans won’t budge on sugar subsidies and export credits, and Europe will never accept GMOs or hormones. Never say never. Trade Policy Problems President Barack Obama and Argentine President Mauricio Macri agreed to organize an effort at a bilateral free trade agreement. This comes at a time when political support in the U.S. for free trade is being seriously challenged. The president’s goals in this matter are laudatory but likely create some cognitive dissonance within the body politic. In fact, the underlying problems are competitiveness, unfair foreign trade practices, and public ignorance about both economics and science. President Obama and his successor have a great deal of wor...
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.