Complexity as Strength Activists are hoping to influence the drafting of the 2023 farm bill but there are two factors working against wholesale changes to the law: 1) high prices; and 2) possible Republican control of Congress. For years, the shear complexity of the massive law caused outsiders to shy away from its arcane details. However, as the size and sophistication of the influence community in Washington has grown, so has the boldness of ideas for changing the law. High food and energy prices are a large political concern and farm groups will be warning that undermining their economic safety net will cause food prices to rise even further. Rural areas tend to vote Republican and if tomorrow’s election delivers more power to the...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
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.