Cultural The Year of the Rabbit Arrives The Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations began on Saturday with festive New Year’s Eve gatherings. Sunday marked the first day of the annual Spring Festival, which will continue through 1 February and then conclude with the Lantern Festival, which runs 2–5 February. This all-important holiday comes at a critical time, as the country has suffered economically, socially, and physically from a difficult and trying Year of the Tiger. In the week leading up to last weekend’s festivities, China reported 13,000 new deaths associated with the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center shows a cumulative total of just over 18,590. The true number since the reopening and rapid s...
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.
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...