Policy Drip Torture Congressional Republicans are now offering a one-week clean extension of federal funding, purportedly to allow time for negotiations with Congressional Democrats and the White House, the latter parties appearing thus far to be disinterested. However, markets need to keep the machinations in Washington in perspective. In a squeaky wheel gets the grease strategy, Republicans believe that the ongoing drama and tension over government operations and, ultimately, the raising of the debt limit ceiling serves their goal of accomplishing policy changes. Voters may lash back at Republicans in November 2014 elections for being irritants in the fall of 2013, but right now Republicans calculate that the only near-term way of en...
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...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.