Embarrassing Distortions Populists in the U.S. Congress are once again going after Big Ag, and as usual with faulty figures. Some are calling on the Federal trade Commission to investigate meat packing companies for increasing profits at the expense of consumers and workers. This attack repeats itself every few years and has consistently failed in every antitrust investigation. However, now the populists have drafted legislation that would impose a moratorium on all agribusiness mergers and acquisitions. Its authors claim that agribusiness firms have “driven family farmers and ranchers out of business.” USDA data shows that the decline in the number of family farms has been a decades-long trend and that the rate has actually sl...
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.