Macroeconomic trends have always had some impact on agricultural production, demand, trade and values, but usually much less so than on other commodities such as industrial metals, precious metals and energy. Unless there are fundamental supply and demand influences in play at the same time, agricultural commodities tend to be less exuberant during economic expansions and less depressed during economic contractions. Agricultural production is food, and people have to eat during good times and bad. However, the current global economic contraction appears quite different from most past downturns. Rather than being a reaction to financial excesses, it has been triggered by the political and economic reaction to the spread of a heretofore unkn...
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.