The African Development Bank issued its African Economic Outlook for 2017. Notable were the factors it highlighted for leading to success on the continent, and it didn’t include subsistence agriculture. Mislead with Impunity Some of the same organizations that decry fake news also propagate it. News coverage of this past weekend’s marches against biotechnology often just cited the protests but not the falsehoods that underlie their motivation. For example, Russia Today (RT) simply regurgitated that activists argue that “research studies have shown that Monsanto’s genetically-modified foods can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects.” More credible news organizations than R...
Key Takeaways: While soybean, palm, sunflower, and rapeseed oils dominate global vegetable oil markets, premium oils such as olive, avocado, coconut, and sesame command substantially higher prices due to their distinctive flavors, nutritional characteristics, and specialized culinary uses.. Ol...
Key Takeaways: The United States has steadily lost global wheat export market share since the 1970s, falling from the world's leading exporter to a projected fifth place in 2026/27. The rapid expansion of Black Sea wheat exports, driven by improved productivity and export infrastructure, has r...
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.