World Perspectives

Farm Bill Deficiencies; Transatlantic Tensions; GMO Correction

Farm Bill DeficienciesU.S. Senate Democrats have finally laid down their marker in a bicameral negotiation over a farm bill renewal. In it, Democrats conceded to a House Republican initiative to double spending on export promotion programs. However, they did not accept the Republican position that California’s Proposition 12, dictating the hog production methods for selling pork into the state, should be overruled. Indeed, the industry’s position is that farm law writers need to suppress the over-wrought approach of animal rights campaigners on many issues. However, their larger problem may be the Trojan Horse of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. possibly entering the government. All the more reason for the agrifood lobby to get a farm bill with some...

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Shuttering Beef Plants

Tyson Foods announced it will shut one large beef plant and slow down another.  The facility shutdown is in Lexington, Nebraska and the plant that will experience a slowdown is in Amarillo, Texas, which will run just one shift per week.  The move to “right-size” the compan...

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From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

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