Foodie Michael Pollan continues his anti-agribusiness diatribe in his latest book, "Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation." Noting that people currently choose not to spend their time cooking, he would manipulate their freedom of choice by placing a tax on prepared food, thereby forcing everyone to cook their own foods using untaxed raw ingredients. Not only will they get skinny, but they also will destroy the evil empire once and for all. Pollan even has advice for First Lady Michelle Obama. He tells her to stop wasting her time talking to food manufacturers about tweaking their products and instead use her bully pulpit to promote laborious home cooking.If Pollan's dream were to come true, which it cannot, the economic impact would...
With considerable fanfare—and few specifics—USDA last week announced its Great American Cotton Plan for 2026-2031. Secretary Brooke Rollins and industry leaders described the initiative as a comprehensive strategy to address the persistent challenges facing U.S. cotton production, d...
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.