India’s production of major oilseeds increased by around 6 percent over the past decade at the same time its population advanced by 9 percent. Although New Delhi restricts vegetable oil imports, particularly soyoil, to protect its domestic crushing industry, imports are significant and have been growing especially for sunflower oil. Although some GMO soybeans are said to be illegally imported, production of them is banned. As a result, soybean yields in India are only about a quarter as large as those in Brazil and the U.S. The disparity between demand, domestic production, and imports means that at some point India will need to legitimize the production of GMO soybeans since increasing import dependence in a country focused on...
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.