The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has sparked furor with its "Got Autism?" campaign that seeks to link consumption of dairy products with increased rates of the disease. Unintended Policy Consequences Most aggies will pay little attention to the Obama administration's announcement today about reducing power plant emissions. Like many policies, however, it has instructive elements regarding unintended consequences. For example, without approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian tar sands oil will continue to flow across Nebraska via the more hazardous means of railroads. EPA conceded that its emission reduction proposal will reduce the number of U.S. jobs, but this ignores the likely large increase in coal ex...
What You Need to Know Today: The Trump administration announced new tariffs of 10 percent to 12.5 percent on imports from 60 major U.S. trading partners as part of a Section 301 action aimed at combating forced labor in global supply chains. Countries that have agreed to adopt and enforce bans...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today, along with the semi-annual cattle inventory report. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with a capacity of 1,000 head or more amounted to 11.4 million head, or 102 percent of last year. All cattle and calves totaled 94.2...
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.