Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends

Opportunity 1: Sweet corn farmers in the United States are seeing success in recent years after the price per bushel of corn has risen over the last two years.
 - I found this opportunity through research on the internet. This was found on the Farm Policy News website where it discusses recent changes of pricing and other things in the agricultural industry. Seeing the increasing price of sweet corn over the last few years led me to believe that this opportunity to possibly grow more and focus on sweet corn over other commodities existed. The prototypical customer in this situation would be grocery shoppers, restaurants, and others. This opportunity, however, can be difficult to exploit for multiple reasons. One reason being that agriculture is a risky business and if you play all of your cards in sweet corn and something happens (natural disaster, sharp drop in prices) then you will end up losing a lot of money. Also, if too many farmers end up growing sweet corn, this can drive prices down. I saw this opportunity because I have worked in the agricultural industry and when a commodity has price increases, this can help get a farmer back on his feet and make his farm profitable.

Opportunity 2: China has elected not to tack on additional tariffs on U.S. soybeans in order to ease trade tensions between the two countries.
 - This opportunity has been a topic of discussion in some of my classes at UF. This news leads me to believe an opportunity exists because when a country, like China, decides to implement tariffs on a U.S. good, this hurts the grower of that commodity. This decision allows U.S. soybean producers to export more while not being punished as much for their production. The customer of this product would be China, who is taking in these soybeans from U.S. producers on the world market. This opportunity is difficult to exploit, this trade war has been going on the last few years and China could very likely implement tariffs at any given moment. I saw this as an opportunity because the more I have heard about it in class, the more I have been able to understand the situation and see the opportunities presented for U.S. soybean farmers.

Opportunity 3: The government's recent regulations on e-cigarettes has banned all flavored e-cigarettes.
 - I found this opportunity through the internet and from hearing about it around campus. I was led to believe this was an opportunity because it causes e-cigarette companies to have to make a decision about their flavored products and what they can do in order to increase their profits while some of their products can no longer be sold. The customer in this situation would be consumers of flavored e-cigarette products (mostly the younger generation). This opportunity is relatively difficult to exploit because these products have became so popular and people have started to become addicted that it creates a black market for these products. I saw this as an opportunity because I have so many friends that use these products so I was able to get a more in depth perception of these regulations.

Opportunity 4: California's equal pay act has been proposed to start allowing athletes to be compensate for their likeness.
 - I found this opportunity through internet research and because I am a fan of college sports. I was led to believe this was an opportunity because it allows businesses to now use the names of famous college athletes to make money as well as the athlete. The customer in this situation would be fans of collegiate sports. This opportunity would be easier to exploit because it would bring in more revenue for business who use the names of athletes on products, and this would be an easy thing to sell, especially if the athlete is very famous (i.e. Tim Tebow who had the highest collegiate jersey sales when he was in college). I saw this as an opportunity because I pay close attention to college football and this has been an ongoing discussion for years now so I have heard many different perspectives on the issue.