The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) faces a contract expiration on 30 September, now only four months away. The union has signaled its intention to strike since November of last year. The relevant contract covers primarily container shipments; bulk cargo is under a separate contract. The strike is likely to affect primarily the South Atlantic and Gulf ports as a settlement on a new contract was already made on the West Coast in July 2023. The master contract agreement will expire and there are other local issues at specific ports with much of the focus on automation potentially replacing labor. For context, about 53 percent of all containerized grain and grain product shipments go through Los Angeles and Long Beach, us...
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...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.