UnCOOL Damage: The Canadian Pork Council released the results of its study proclaiming $500 million in damages annually as a result of the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling law (COOL). With an accumulated $2 billion in economic harm, the assertion is important in that it starts to make more clear the amount of trade retaliation coming from Canada and Mexico should the U.S. Congress fail to change the law by the May deadline imposed by the WTO. A change that observers of Congress' slow ways seem skeptical will be achieved.No Japan TPP: There is growing skepticism that the LDP government in Tokyo can overcome opposition within its ranks and move to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations. Too many of the current freshman c...
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.
Key Takeaways: Brazil confirmed a Newcastle disease outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Santa Catarina on 18 October, raising concerns about potential disruptions to poultry exports despite the outbreak being confined to a single facility thus far. Mexico and Malaysia have imposed nationwi...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...