Spying Versus Observing President Obama rebuffed charges of U.S. spying on European missions for leverage in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations by rhetorically asking why anyone else would have an intelligence service. While factually correct, this is not exactly diplomatically reassuring. What his rebuff could have, would have, should have been is that "there are no secrets in a democracy" (Dick McCormick, Merrill Lynch; witness Snowden), and America and Europe are the most transparent democracies on earth. We wear our offensive and defensive objectives in the TTIP negotiations on our shirtsleeves.In addition, these governments intentionally leak materials to obtain feedback and understanding. The cha...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.