World Perspectives

Back to the States to Fill USDA Trade Undersecretary

President Biden has announced his intention to nominate Alexis Taylor as Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs. Taylor has served as the Director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture since late 2016. Previously, she was Deputy Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Ag Services during the Obama administration; that was prior to the domestic Farm Services Agency (FSA) and Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) being split between two separate undersecretaries per the 2014 farm bill.   Taylor will be the second person to serve in the trade-only role at USDA. The first was Ted McKinney, former Director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, and now CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agric...

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Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for Dec 11, 2025...

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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.

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