WTO Forum Misses Mark WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a well meaning leader who has correctly focused on some of the organization’s bureaucratic management problems. However, like too many of her predecessors, she misses out on some tactics that could move the ball forward on trade liberalization. The annual Public Forum has just concluded and like the agendas of previous years, there is nothing compelling about it for the core agenda – removing trade barriers. The agenda was entitled, “The Missing Peace” looked into how to involve youth in trade, policymaking and peacebuilding for a more sustainable future. The core mission of the WTO is not youth or sustainability. The main hurdle to mission progress i...
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...
Key Takeaways: On Friday afternoon, President Trump announced that Russia will “immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” to the United States. The deal, typical of this administration, is light on details but promises an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 m...
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
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.