A federal court today rejected a key part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandate for cellulosic fuels, but it also ruled against a complaint lodged by the American Petroleum Institute (API). The API last year petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn the EPA's mandates for 2012 advanced biofuel volumes, both cellulosic and overall advanced.The court vacated the EPA's 2012 cellulosic volume of 8.65 million gallons (reduced from the statutory level of 500 million gallons) because EPA's estimates included an element of "promoting growth" in the cellulosic fuel sector, as API described it. The court agreed that since EPA's estimation process "did not take neutral aim at accuracy, it wa...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.