During the recent dry season, there was a 77 percent year-to-year increase in fires in Brazil, typically started for land clearing and eventual natural resource exploitation. Ecologist Cassie Freund at Wake Forest University blamed the U.S. by saying, “There’s a straight line from Trump’s trade war with China to the destruction of the Amazon.” In other words, China buying South American soybeans instead of U.S. product has precipitated the area expansion effort in Brazil. First, it should be noted that over the past couple of decades, Brazil’s soybean production area expanded an average 5.11 percent per year. However, the expansion has been at a slower level in more recent years. Given this year’s fires,...
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.
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...