Building demand becomes a central focus during times of abundant resource surpluses. Asia is the easiest due to its demographics and GDP growth but there is a renewed look at Africa. Countries like Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Tanzania and Ghana all have economies growing at 6.5 percent and higher. Many are traditional markets for importing rice and wheat, but they have been under-consumers of beef, pork and chicken. Chicken imports have been growing due to its lower cost, but the tipping point will come when beef and pork are affordable to a rising middle class. Europe has traditionally been well represented on the continent, and the Chinese have now moved in aggressively. The development and assistance agencies in the U...
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.