Long considered a basket case, scarred by colonialism and on permanent aid dependency, Sub-Saharan Africa is receiving more attention these days for its potential as a growth market. The World Bank predicts the region will grow faster this year than last, and so will imports of key agricultural commodities. Even the Trump Administration, whose leader last year made a cringe-worthy derogatory reference to the region, has formed the Prosper Africa initiative to better focus U.S. efforts in this part of the world. Only about 20 of the 48 countries in the Sub-Saharan region are the source of GDP growth and consequently higher commercial imports. This makes growth in those specific nations even more impressive. Major imports are wheat and...
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.