Backdoor Farm Bill President Biden has invited the top Democrat and Republican from both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to meet tomorrow and discuss reauthorization of the $1 trillion-plus farm bill. It is rare for a president to get so directly involved in a generally less controversial piece of business. The meeting comes amidst negotiations over a debt limit increase, an issue that dwarfs the farm bill but could make it a bargaining chip in the process. While the White House insists it wants a “clean” debt limit increase, it has already initiated negotiations. This means it likely will evolve into an omnibus legislative package involving a lot of horse trading. This no doubt will include the farm bill since Hou...
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.