World Perspectives

Farewell Bob, We Will Miss You

We regret to inform long-time Ag Perspectives readers of the passing of Robert Kohlmeyer. Bob had a long and prolific career, first with Cargill and then with WPI.  He spent the first 34 years of his professional career doing everything from managing Cargill’s elevator operations to leading the company’s futures trading desk. He was a key trader for the company during the so-called Great Grain Robbery with the Soviet Union in 1973, and later the grain embargo against the same USSR in 1980. He would later testify several times before the U.S. Congress on the machinations of the grain trade and government policies. In a classic phrasing by Bob before a House committee in 1978 he said, The role of the private exporter in thi...

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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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