Canada does not want to give up its supply management programs for dairy and poultry in the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations, and now it reportedly also wants to maintain the carve-out protecting another sector.Following are a few short, cynical takes on trade policy developments.Better Trade Deal: Last year Donald Trump ran to the left of Democrats on the subject of trade, and now U.S. trading partners looking for more reasonable leadership in Washington confront Senate Democrats trying to recapture their protectionist mojo. They’ve released their “Better Deal on Trade and Jobs,” which means complaining that Trump doesn’t go far enough in blocking out unfair foreign competition. Democratic leaders would add more aggressive trade enforcement action,...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.