Agriculture’s Gig Workers A consortium of leftist, environmental and anti-meat activists is suing U.S. meat companies for marketing their products as produced by independent family farmers. The groups argue that due to the contracting system utilized, the meat is instead the output of corporate-controlled factory farms. Notable is that they have filed their complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The contracting system in poultry and increasingly in pork is despised by farmers that fail to produce to the standards of the contract but the vast majority of producers have successful operations in large part due to the highly refined production systems devised by their “clients.” The technical argument before the FT...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...