Conglomerate Vision Agribusinesses are paying attention. They along with oil companies are being blamed for inflation via gouging. There is an effort to ramp up the trustbusters, provide taxpayer incubator funds (subsidies) for startup competitors, and now even invoke the war-time Defense Production Act to show action on making baby formula. Noting that 40 percent of U.S. baby formula was made by one plant in Michigan with a still yet to be determined problem for its shutdown, it is used as another example of why big is bad. Politicians not economists interpret that having 10 separate plants each making 10-percent of baby formula would somehow add competition and supply chain resiliency. Some of this reputation for big is bad is ear...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.