Washington offers multiple and varied opportunities to engage in the agricultural policy debate, and today presented two competing options that are both annual events.Washington offers multiple and varied opportunities to engage in the agricultural policy debate, and today presented two competing options that are both annual events. The first involved the topic of global climate change and its impact on agriculture, particularly in developing countries. It offered speeches by many current and former government officials. The second option, formatted as a series of television-style moderated panels involving questions and answers interlaced with video clips, was entitled, "The Devolution of AgriCULTURE." Its focus was the ongoing cat fight b...
What You Need to Know Today: Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans continued to accelerate, with USDA reporting another 558 KMT sold to China and 236 KMT to unknown destinations. Combined with sales announced Wednesday and Thursday, the latest purchases bring the three-day total to approximately...
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.