Anti-Big is Anti-Competitive White House economic advisor Lael Brainard bragged at last week’s anti-monopoly summit meeting that the Biden Administration’s “Meat Action Plan” subsidizing small meat-packing operations is providing more and better options to farmers and ranchers and consumers. Because it is barely underway, is dwarfed by the large incumbent system, and will not provide lower prices to consumers, Brainard’s comments amounted more to cheerleading than any factual claims. Confronting consolidation is part of the Administration’s industrial strategy of boosting competition and diversifying supply chains. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack is promoting his creation of a dozen new Regional Food B...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.