Farm Bill Hurdle: Lobbyists are paid to make things happen in Washington, but ultimately their power is derived from the size and importance of the clients they represent. A large block of voters or a major employer gets the attention of politicians. Marching up Capitol Hill with an army of supporters behind you gets action. So why couldn't the lobbyists representing the big farm block motivate members of Congress to pass a new farm bill last year? USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack says it is because they are irrelvant and chased the wrong issues.However, the lobbyist is in the best position to know the problem, and some say that is what didn't happen: Farmers failed to make a direct communication to their elected representatives reinforcing wha...
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...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
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.