Cultural The Year of the Rabbit Arrives The Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations began on Saturday with festive New Year’s Eve gatherings. Sunday marked the first day of the annual Spring Festival, which will continue through 1 February and then conclude with the Lantern Festival, which runs 2–5 February. This all-important holiday comes at a critical time, as the country has suffered economically, socially, and physically from a difficult and trying Year of the Tiger. In the week leading up to last weekend’s festivities, China reported 13,000 new deaths associated with the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center shows a cumulative total of just over 18,590. The true number since the reopening and rapid s...
What You Need to Know Today: Markets got a surprise with a corn yield of 181.2 bushels/acre in the October WASDE, above the average estimate of 177.6 bushels/acre and up from USDA’s September estimate of 178.5 bushels/acre. Although stronger demand is expected to absorb some of the addit...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts slightly while forecasting a slight increase in broiler production. Beef is now projected at 24.802 billion pounds, 75 million pounds less than in September. Cow slaughter is expected to be up; however, this will be offset by lower ste...
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.