Last Friday China announced it would impose temporary anti-dumping duties on pork imports from the EU. China's commerce ministry said that the investigation has "preliminarily determined that imports of relevant pork and pig by-products originating in the European Union&nb...
Venting Hypocrisy At a BRICS meeting this past weekend, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva characterized President Trump’s use of tariffs as a tool of “blackmail.” The formal definition of blackmail involves demanding benefit from someone in exchange for not reveali...
Beef packer margins improved for the fifth straight week and added about $68/head in profits to put returns to processing back in a very healthy range. Margins are now around $80/head, which is on part with the 2020-2015 average. The increase in margins comes as beef prices hover near all-time...
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.