Pesticide Hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy is the polite characterization of those who refuse vaccinations against disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) categorizes anti-vaxxers as one of the top ten health threats. The WHO’s sister agency, the Food & Agriculture Organization, should similarly characterize the anti-pesticide crowd as a top ten threat to global food security. Those who “hesitate” about the use of human biological protection and plant/animal biological protection share the same underlying bases – a distrust of the science and complacency about the threats. Both perceive wide ranging human and environmental health risks from using chemistry against nature’s diseases, and because those...
A federal appeals court paused a USITC ruling against President Trump’s use of Section 122 to impose 10-percent global tariffs. A bipartisan group of 80 House members asked USTR to investigate specialty crop imports from Mexico for unfair trade practices. India notified the WT...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.