The Cahiers de doléances [or kaje for short] were the pre-French revolution (1789) lists of societal complaints. The collective disappointments of the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of society too. Nothing has changed. Documents of the time cite the criticisms as: government waste, indirect taxes, church taxes and corruption, and the hunting rights of the aristocracy. Money, corruption, and privilege. It caused a revolution. So, imagine the fright in Brussels when this winter (2024), 10,000 German farmers with 3,000 tractors mount a protest in Berlin, and their complaint spreads like wildfire to multiple member states. The protest began a few years ago in the Netherlands where farmers are just 1.5 percent of the population...
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.
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...