Stiffing the Customer: If U.S. antitrust laws applied to government officials, Commerce Under Secretary for International Trade Francisco Sanchez would be in trouble right now. He just negotiated an agreement with Mexico that will ensure American consumers pay double- and triple-digit increases in prices for tomatoes. Mr. Sanchez says the deal will ensure that U.S. producers have a "level playing field," which means consumers will pay prices far above production costs for Mexican tomatoes in order to subsidize the less competitive growers north of the border. Input on the agreement from consumers will be suppressed due to two factors: (1) a reportedly very short public comment period; (2) the fact that so-called "consumer" advocacy groups...
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...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
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.