There has been much attention to, and discussion of, China’s declining two-way trade volumes. China is a trade dependent economy, with imports of many commodities and goods fueling its manufacturing and processing sectors and exports bringing in hard currency. China’s trade flows, however, are down so far this year. In U.S. dollar terms, first half 2023 (January through June) total trade was down 4.7 percent compared to 2022. Through August, exports dropped 5.6 percent and imports dropped 7.6 percent in value. This has raised the attention toward China’s tenuous economic situation. In agricultural trade, exports from the U.S to China have declined through the first seven months of the year by 17 percent, but by commodity...
The corn and soy complex closed higher, with the wheat market mixed, as winter wheat closed up but spring wheat and livestock ended lower. Part of the strength for corn and soybeans may have been a weather premium, as crop planting has started out fast but warm weather has been slow to develop...
Real GDP grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2026, slightly below the consensus expectation of 2.3 percent but above the 0.5 percent growth in Q4 2025. The GDP number matches the average annualized pace of growth since the peak back in late 2007, right before the Financial P...
Reflect for a moment on what you eat. There is a lot of advice out there in the ether about what you should eat, but really, what do you currently eat and how much? The good people at the USDA have some data for you, to help you answer that question. USDA says that we eat quite a bit of meat. L...
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.