Farm income data shows that cotton has been a volatile market, and the industry is pressing to get back into Title I of the next farm bill.While the farm bill is scheduled to be taken up in 2018, it could possibly come before the full House of Representatives or the Senate in 2017 at any time after the August recess concludes. Of course the existing economics of the farm sector always has a big impact on the farm bill debate and the ultimate direction of policy. Indeed, the House Agriculture Committee had a hearing on the State of the Rural Economy earlier this spring where Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Texas) noted that net farm income has dropped over the past four years, which provided a test for the policies of the 2012 Farm Bill.USDA’s E...
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically several centimeters in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from at least the Upper Paleolithic, across Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. The microliths were used in spear points and arrowhea...
Fabiana is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, native to dry slopes in western South America.[1] They are evergreen shrubs or subshrubs,[1] with needle-like leaves and profuse tiny tubular flowers in summer. The common name is false heath because the leaves superficially resem...
Lobelia (/loʊˈbiːliə, lə-/[4][5][6]) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae comprising 415 species,[7] with a subcosmopolitan distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions.[8] They are known g...
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.