Most projects are first examined by the people who will later earn from them.
Feasibility is usually sold by those who sell what comes next: the study, the design, the build, the management contract. The stage that decides whether a project should exist at all is the least staffed, least independent, and least rewarded stage of the entire process. Billion-scale ventures are launched every year without ever having been properly questioned. I work only in that missing stage — and nowhere else.
No development contracts.
No implementation.
No equity in outcomes.
I am paid for the verdict, never for the project. When the answer is no, nothing of mine is lost — which is precisely why the no is worth having. I do not sell what comes after the decision. That is what makes the decision I help you reach believable.
Three moves, in order.
Model first
Every venture, however complex, can be modeled as a spreadsheet. Rigorous financial and agronomic modeling comes before a single dollar is spent — not after the groundbreaking ceremony.
Least water-cost
A proprietary water-econometrics model prices the scarcest input first. In a desert, water is not a line item; it is the business case. Everything else is arithmetic that follows from it. Example, from my own NZZ analysis: growing its imported wheat locally would cost Egypt roughly $25 billion a year in desalinated water — the world market charges $3.9 billion for the same grain.
The honest no
A verdict you can act on: kill it, redesign it, or proceed — with the reasons attached, in writing, defensible in front of any board or majlis.
The ground is not theory.
Thirty-seven years in arid agriculture: desert-native pharmaceutical botanicals, CAM and Crassulaceae plantations under solar arrays, cactus fodder systems, neem and drought-tolerant tree crops, salicornia and saline aquaculture, algae — and, where rain is free, dairy abroad in Ireland and South America. This portfolio is evidence of depth. It is not the offer.
- Turnaround of ailing agro-industrial ventures — I have seen how projects die; that is why I can tell before.
- I built the Emirates' first wheat farm — and I will still tell you when importing wheat wins.
- Author of Wasser wird nie knapp, a two-page guest feature with his own rainfall data, NZZ am Sonntag, 5 August 2012 — on why water is never consumed, only priced.
- Dipl.-Ing. agr., Agricultural Economics, University of Bonn — agronomy, Kiel — law, Sorbonne.
- German and French native; English and Spanish working languages.
Sparring while killing is still cheap.
Ministers and their advisors, before the announcement. Sovereign funds and family offices, before the commitment. Investors, before the deck becomes a decision. Including — especially — when the useful answer is no.
Write to strunden@protonmail.com. The first thirty minutes are free.