The president released his proposed FY 2020 budget today. It provides another salvo in the border wall fight along with about $27 billion in cuts for USDA and farm bill programs as well as a boost of nearly $3 billion via inspection user fees for USDA agencies. The House and Senate Budget Committees will hold hearings on the president’s plan this Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. The president is required by law (Congressional Budget Act of 1974) to submit a budget proposal to Congress. However, it is only a request and an early step that typically initiates a very small skirmish in a long process culminating in actual appropriations bills. In the past 20 years, those bills have often been rolled into large omnibus packages or, mo...
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.