GSP and the 21st Century The European Union has announced a revision to its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that grants duty-free access for goods from poorer countries. In particular, they have criteria that can limit benefits from countries that are not serious about implementing international conventions on human rights, labor rights, the environment and good governance. The latter is important. The U.S. program excludes countries that are communist, unless they have a normalized trade agreement, countries with export restrictions that hurt other poor countries, and those that lack worker rights. The protection of intellectual property rights is discretionary. In short, there is opportunity to overhaul American GSP benefits in...
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.