World Perspectives

Scale and Sustainability

Sustainability has become an important attribute for agricultural systems with many activists falsely asserting that extensive farming has a smaller environmental footprint. Now research by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (ICTA), an organization focused on making small farms in developing countries both competitive and sustainable, has issued ratings that favor the larger, intensive agricultural practices of rich countries. What is notable is that India’s agriculture ranks amongst the least sustainable systems despite being largely vegetarian in consumption and highly incentivized for extensive farming practices. CIAT weighed 20 different factors including greenhouse gas emissions, fair trade, food price volatilit...

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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.

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