USDA, USTR Out of Sync: USDA has been at the forefront of encouraging consumption from local sources (Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food) and has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to end its discriminatory country of origin labeling regime -- which may not, in fact, be corrected. Yet Inside U.S. Trade reports that the "United States yesterday (17 December) urged other members of the World Trade Organization to join its fight against what it says are proliferating informal trade barriers and requirements by countries for local sourcing ... in an effort to favor and protect their domestic industries."Separately, USTR talked a good pro-trade line at this week's Trade Policy Review Board meeting, but Europe remains upset over old BSE-rela...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
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.