Voices Against GM Moratorium A Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by India's Supreme Court has recommended a 10-year moratorium on any field trials for GM crops. Scientists, agribusiness and farmers are voicing their support for the technology and are charging the TEC with bias, a lack of focus and unbalanced scientific analysis. The warning is that failure to adopt new agricultural technologies will put upward pressure on prices.Specifically, the Consortium of Indian Farmers' Associations (CIFA) says the technology is needed to produce more while using less inputs, particularly since chemicals can harm farmers. The TEC erroneously asserts that GM crops are banned in Europe. Many EU countries have allowed plantings of GM crops an...
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...
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.