India has long manipulated its food and agriculture market in an effort to protect inefficient producers while concurrently feeding its hungry. However, now its analogous effort in the manufacturing sector is raising concerns. Checkoff Trouble Nearly a dozen different organizations have been tussling for three years over the future cost and management structure of the U.S. beef checkoff program. Now USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack says he is going to produce a new blueprint, but he made the announcement at a meeting of the National Farmers Union (NFU), an organization that dropped out of the restructuring effort because it was getting nowhere with its more radical view on change. NFU wants the checkoff to be fully refundable, which would be li...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.