World Perspectives

Imperfect Subsidies Calculation

The latest edition of the OECD’s annual report entitled Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation highlights an important problem but undermines the solution. The report notes that 54 countries provide over a half billion dollars annually in subsidies to farmers. It correctly asserts that the subsidies are market distorting, though it overstates some of the specific harms. For example, it concurrently states that the subsidies increase the income gap between smaller farmers and larger ones, and yet it reduces the competitiveness of the food industry overall. This argument flies in the face of the principle of economies of scale. However, the greatest harm done by the report is its failure to include border measures in its calcula...

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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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