Inverses in Support Developing countries want the WTO to impose new disciplines on agricultural domestic supports by rich countries. They correctly argue that via the Uruguay Round, rich countries locked in higher subsidy levels than the developing nations. However, the developing countries could not afford higher domestic subsidies at the time and instead use higher border measures to ensure farm income. It was a quid pro quo at the time. Now the larger developing countries like China, India, and Brazil are boosting their domestic supports despite some adverse WTO rulings against them. China this week vowed to increase its subsidies for corn and soybean production, and to stabilize prices for wheat and rice. Brazil says it will increase t...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.