Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA Iraq has devalued its currency by 20 percent, scrapping their old “official” exchange rate. Iraq’s financial situation has become very difficult due to the drop in prices for crude oil and oil products. Iraq does import most of its food needs, including grains, and the devaluation is expected to push prices higher as imports become more costly. The government is the largest employer in the country but recently, due to low oil prices for exports, has had to borrow to pay employee salaries. One can probably surmise that, at least in the short term, the grain business to Iraq will be very difficult. Iraq is reported to be importing the 700,000 MT of feed b...
Weather concerns and the impacts of the war in Iran helped push wheat and corn to sharp gains Tuesday, with both markets blowing past key technical resistance levels. The weather is now coupled with geopolitical tensions that look increasingly hard to resolve, which is giving funds the perfect...
Congress is moving forward with its FY 2027 spending bills, while also still working to address FY 2026 funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is still in a shutdown. The House Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee marked up and passed its FY 2027 bill. The House bill prov...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Tunisian researchers have been able to fully sequence the genomes of two local durum wheat types that have been grown in Tunisia for generations. They say that this “could be the key to developing more climate-resistant duru...
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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.