Monday, January 13, 2025

Members in the News: Janury 13, 2025

Jada Thompson, University of Arkansas
Glynn Tonsor,
Kansas State University

Mass Deportations Could Endanger Kansas’ Meat Economy: ‘It Would Be a Ghost Town’

By: NPR – January 6, 2025

“Mass deportations would exacerbate the problem, sending shockwaves up and down the meat supply chain. For one thing, deporting meat-packing workers would slow down the plants, triggering shortages. I think we're going to see higher prices for the retail customer.”

“losses like those would spread broadly through southwest Kansas towns that depend on big feedlots, dairies and packing houses. They very often are one of the largest employers and local tax generators, so there's relevant implications for funding of schools, funding of libraries, funding of anything you want to talk about that's publicly funded in local areas.”

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Read more on: NPR


Karina Gallardo, Washington State University

Perfect Storm’ of Factors is Devastating WA Apple Farmers

By: The Seattle Times – January 4, 2025

“Labor accounts for about 60% of all the operational costs,” said Karina Gallardo, an economics professor at Washington State University who focuses on agriculture. “Back in 2009, this percentage was about 45%.”

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Read more on: The Seattle Times


Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee

Many Tennessee Farmers Drowned by Water and Parched by Drought in 2024; This Year’s Outlook is Murky

By: Farms.com – January 6, 2025

“The state’s agricultural and forestry industries directly and indirectly contributed $103 billion to the Tennessee economy. 2024 was a struggle for many of our producers and sectors. Next year could also be difficult, with trade policy uncertainty, low crop prices, drought- and hurricane-reduced feed supplies and high input costs.”

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Read more on: Farms.com


Steven Klose, Texas A&M University

U.S. Economy Stable in 2025, Challenges Remain For Ag

By: Farm Progress – January 6, 2025

“The U.S. economy is projected to be stable in 2025, with inflation back to 2%, unemployment hovering near 4%, and steady projected real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of around 3% according to the Kansas City Fed. The global economy is also expected to grow in 2025, creating demand for U.S. agricultural goods in world markets. However, challenges persist in price volatility, uncertainty in labor policy, and public debt levels.”

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Read more on: Farm Progress


Matt Woerman, Colorado State University

Landmark Government Report Calls For Nation

By: Los Angeles Times – December 20, 2024

“There are tons of different ways that you could try to get farmers to extract less water, everything from just putting limits on how much water they’re allowed to use, charging them fees to use this valuable resource, some kind of a subsidy program to use more efficient irrigation infrastructure.”

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Read more on: Los Angeles Times


Jada Thompson, University of Arkansas

Beef Prices Are Surging—And Could Be About to Get Even Higher

By: Newsweek – January 6, 2025

"Mass deportations would likely disrupt labor availability, impacting both legal and undocumented foreign-born workers. This could create added scrutiny for legal workers and further exacerbate labor shortages. Since meatpacking is highly labor-intensive, such disruptions would likely result in a slowdown in plant efficiency.”

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Read more on: Newsweek


Benjamin Brown, University of Missouri

Farmers Will Likely Add to Their Corn Acreage This Year, Economists Predict

By: RFD TV – January 7, 2025

“My expectation is I do think that the market’s going to incentivize additional corn acres, and so whether USDA makes that adjustment at the Outlook Meeting in February, or if they wait till May - well, I guess it would be the Prospective Plans report the end of March when they survey producers - but officially coming to the balance sheets in May. There are some timing aspects here, but certainly, I think we’re going to be in an environment where there are additional corn acres. I know it’s a long way out, and weather is just as volatile and fickle as markets are in a lot of cases, but you know, at least the weather pattern certainly suggests that it’s going to be a drier spring. That tends to hint at additional corn acreage as well.”

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Read more on: Farms.com


David Ortega, Michigan State University

Your Grocery Bill May Get Worse. Why Food Prices Are on the Rise Again

By: Barrons – January 9, 2025

“Higher month-over-month gains could show up in the December CPI release on Jan. 15. We’ll see retail agriculture prices increase in December, and very likely in the first quarter of this year.”

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Read more on: Barrons

 

Monday, January 6, 2025

Members in the News: January 6, 2025

David Ortega, Michigan State University
Luis Ribera,
Texas A&M University

Why Trump's Tariffs on Mexico Would Mean Higher Avocado Prices at the Grocery Store

By: NPR – December 23, 2024

“Broad tariffs, like what’s being proposed, is not something that we’ve seen before. We had the trade war with China back in 2018 that affected steel and aluminum, but when it comes to food, these types of policy proposals are not something that are very common or that we’ve seen recently.”

"Given that avocado is a staple of our consumption here, I would say that the elasticity is not very high, meaning that even with a big increase in price, consumption is not going to change that much.”

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Read more on: NPR


Amitrajeet Batabyal, Rochester Institute of Technology

Industrial Policy: Why is it Criticized and is there a Role for it in the 2020s?

By: Medium – December 24, 2024

“Industrial policy has been practiced around the world for a long time. Even though economists acknowledge that there exist a narrow range of circumstances in which this kind of policy makes sense, generally speaking, the practitioners of the “dismal science” tend to have a dim view of the ability of governments to conduct this kind of policy successfully. Why? Five reasons follow.”

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Read more on: Medium


Zachariah Rutledge, Michigan State University

Migrant Farmworkers Came to Florida For Stability. They Found Danger

By: Tampa Bay Times – December 27, 2024

“Agricultural work is, by nature, punishing. It can also be dangerous. In 2022, it had one of the highest fatality rates among industries nationwide. For more than a decade, the agriculture industry has seen a decline in local workers seeking jobs. It’s generally lower wages — and it’s seasonal.”

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Read more on: Tampa Bay Times


David Ortega, Michigan State University

  • Data Dive: Records Show Steep Rise In Foreign Ownership Of HawaiÊ»i Farmland
    By: Civil Beat – January 2, 2025
  • US Farmers Fret Over Trump's Deportation
    By: Barons – December 30, 2024
  • Michigan Eggs Must Be Cage-Free by 2025 as New Sales Law Takes Effect
    By: Bridge Michigan – December 13, 2024

Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee

Report Details More Economic Struggles for Tenn.’s Ag Sectors

By: Morning Ag Clips – December 22, 2024

“The state’s agricultural and forestry industries directly and indirectly contributed $103 billion to the Tennessee economy. 2024 was a struggle for many of our producers and sectors. Next year could also be difficult, with trade policy uncertainty, low crop prices, drought- and hurricane-reduced feed supplies and high input costs.”

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Read more on: Morning Ag Clips


Hunter Biram, University of Arkansas

From Mississippi River Lows to Rising Costs: Arkansas Farmers Brace For Uncertain 2025

By: Southwest Times Record – December 23, 2024

“The good news is that the lame-duck session has not entirely sidelined farm country,” said Hunter Biram, an extension economist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “However, even with another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers will lack the robust safety net needed for 2024 and 2025.”

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Read more on: Southwest Times Record


Michael Adjemian, University of Georgia

Farmers Still Reeling Months After Helene Ravaged Crops

By: Farms.com – December 24, 2024

“Helene's devastation shouldn't have much impact on consumer prices because crops grown elsewhere can make up for most shortage.”

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Read more on: Farms.com


David Ortega, Michigan State University
Amy Hagerman,
Oklahoma State University

Egg Prices Soar Ahead of Holiday Season: Why?

By: Retail Wire – December 23, 2024

“You have shocks to supply and increase to demand. That’s a recipe for prices to go up — in this case quite significantly.”

“Egg production is a complex system. The bird flu outbreak creates added volatility into that supply chain, which makes it very difficult to break apart how much of the price increase is associated with true cost increase in the supply chain.

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Read more on: Retail Wire


Dawn Thilmany, Colorado State University

Are Colorado's Egg prices Due For a Big Jump in January? Not Necessarily, and Here's Why

By: Coloradoan – December 24, 2024

"There’s just been supply shocks happening consistently, then you add this (cage-free) policy on top and it’s just a recipe for higher costs. When you’re starting with a base price of eggs that pre-COVID might have even been below $2, that’s why price increases are creating a bit of a shock for folks. Cage-free eggs are typically somewhere between $1 and $5 more expensive per dozen than those produced in caged facilities.”

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Read more on: Coloradoan


Timothy Beatty, University of California, Davis
Goeun Lee,
University of California, Davis

Agricultural Workers Reduce Hours Or Move Locations To Avoid Wildfire Smoke

By: Eurasia Review – December 30, 2024

“When this smoke is really heavy there’s a large reduction in the amount of people in a field in day.”

“We could figure out very rich hourly information of where these farmworkers went and if they moved to another location. This is kind of the first application of this data to answer some important questions in agricultural economics.”

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Read more on: Eurasia Review


Paul Mitchell, University of Wisconsin, Madison

For Wisconsin Farmers, Farm Bill Extension Brings Relief, Uncertainty

By: WXPR – January 1, 2025

"Prices have been declining on the corn and soybeans and the processes used to create this support in these times of thin, negative margins, they're out-of-date. Those floors were set in 2018, and you know, we've gone through a lot of inflation and so, $1,000 isn't what it used to be."

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Read more on: WXPR


James Mintert, Purdue University

Dr. Jim Mintert Retires from Purdue as Ag Econ Professor, Director of Center for Commercial Agriculture

By: Hoosier Ag Today – January 2, 2025

““I’ve been a Land Grant University faculty member for 38 years, spending the first 23 years of my career at Kansas State University before joining the Purdue faculty 15 years ago and I could not have chosen a better career path! Developing and conducting educational programs and applied research designed to address the needs of commercial agricultural producers has been immensely rewarding.”

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Read more on: Hoosier Ag Today


Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Economics Say Cash Rents Should Decline in 2025

By: Brownfield – January 3, 2025

“Cash rents have risen quite considerably in the last couple years, particularly since 2020. Getting them back to 2020 levels isn’t going to get us to profitability, but it’s a start.  Cash rents on this rented land is going to be difficult to justify from the return that we’re getting.”

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Read more on: Brownfield