Politico interviewed 11 leaders in U.S. agriculture and determined that based on the pandemic, the food system is not ready for prime time. The thrust of the article is the need to crisis-proof the food system, as if pandemics happen all the time. For example, one observation is the need to stockpile PPE equipment, a conclusion also drawn more than a decade before the pandemic. Looking back to the top news of the 2020 pandemic, it was a shortage of toilet paper due to hording. There have been absolutely shortages of labor in harvesting and crop processing. Some will not like to solution to that problem – automation. In fact, unemployment increased the need to food, which was met with a very large increase in food assistan...
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.