World Perspectives

Wrong at the Top; Happy Talk

Wrong at the Top We admit as private policy analysts that sometimes we add 1+1 and get three. It turns out top government officials can make the same mistake. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack had mused aloud that China could be buying Brazilian corn and not U.S. corn in retaliation for state-level restrictions on the Middle Kingdom buying American farmland. It was a way for the Secretary to fend off criticism of a U.S. agricultural trade deficit while pinning blame on Republican governors. Never mind that the Biden Administration’s relationship with Beijing is not exactly rosy.  Now comes word that China has cancelled corn purchases from Ukraine. That could be a move to hurt Russia’s enemy, or per German sources, it could be a...

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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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