Experienced trade negotiators (we were involved once as an official commercial observer) know that there is one thread common to virtually all international trade negotiations, which is that such talks almost always take as long as the amount of time available for them and are finalized at figuratively the last minute. Most eventually face some sort of a deadline, usually imposed by political considerations of one or more of the negotiating parties. The negotiations to create a revised NAFTA trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. have become a classic example of this. Various U.S. and Mexican political considerations made it important that an agreement be completed in time to become effective before a new government takes power...
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...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.