The President’s FY 2020 proposed budget was released today with$43 billion in proposed cuts to agriculture programs over 10 years. Some of the same proposals were put forth last year and other proposals are very typical to those from past budgets of even the Obama Administration which were not ever close to being enacted. The release is about a month earlier than last year’s plan which was delayed by the government shutdown over the failure to pass the appropriations bills the year prior. As is typical of Presidential budget blueprints, it is just a very small skirmish in a long and volatile federal budget debate that is often deferred until the 11th hour – or into the following budget year. The President’s budget p...
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.