Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA Sri Lanka has decided to lease underutilized land to investors for one year in the expectation of producing 250,000 MT of additional maize for animal feed use. The land will only be made available to local investors. In 2020 Sri Lanka banned the import of maize due to foreign currency problems. The country does have an annual shortfall of about 250,000 MT of maize – total animal feed consumption of maize is about 600,000 MT. In 2020 the local poultry industry suffered very badly due to the lack of feed maize – poultry consumes about 400,000 MT of maize per year. The Agriculture Minister of Bangladesh says that the country has great potential to produce corn o...
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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.