Business' Trade Agenda The U.S., Europe and others have shifted towards a post-Doha plurilateral approach to trade liberalization, which has developing countries and anti-trade/pro-development activists up in arms. The activists plan a session later this year on multilateralism's "state of crisis" and how to get the WTO back to focusing on enforcement and assistance. But the advice to the business community from former USTR official Dorothy Dwoskin is that where there is a unified agenda, a process will follow. At this juncture, major developed countries are circling around an International Services Agreement (ISA). Deputy USTR to the WTO Michael Punke today said that the current debate about an ISA is the first time he has witnessed any...
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.