Members in the News: Tyner, Laborde, Funk, Sumner, Marchant, Gundersen, Bovay, Messer, Boehje, McFadden, Kimle, and Burney

Wally Tyner, Purdue University David Laborde, International Food Policy Research Institute Sam Funk, RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness China could end up hurting itself with trade action against US farmers. Here's how By: CNBC - April 19, 2018 "This is a lose-lose for China," said Wallace Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. "They grow only 15 percent of their soybeans and depend on imports for their whole animal feed system and on the oil for human consumption. And so when the price of something that important to your imports goes up, it negatively effects your economy." "In the short run, China may not have many options because the planting decisions have already been made in different parts of the world," said David Laborde, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C. "By even threatening that tariff, China in fact already raised the price for what they're going to have to pay for beans now," said Sam Funk, a St. Louis-based grains and oilseeds analyst with RaboResearch. "Why would you announce that threat other than to get the [Trump] administration to back off theirs and trying to create some kind of, if you will, bargaining chip." (Continued...) Read more on: CNBC Daniel Sumner, University of California at Davis California Almonds Are Back After Four Years of Brutal Drought By: Bloomberg - March 14, 2018 After dropping during the drought, the 2017 almond crop rebounded to a record 2.14 billion pounds of shelled nuts. That’s more than triple the amount of walnuts, the No. 2 U.S. nut, and more than four times that of pistachios, which are emerging as a serious competitor for California acreage. Almonds are “incredibly versatile,” said Daniel Sumner, an economist at the University of California, Davis. “And California is the best place to grow it. Where else can the weather be hot and dry and perfect, but you also have a system where you can bring water from mountains full of snow?” Almond-picking is also highly mechanized, which attracts farmers concerned about migrant-worker labor shortages, and its long history in the state creates a level of expertise competitors can't match, he said. (Continued...) Read more on: Bloomberg Mary Marchant, Virginia Tech American farmers wary of Trump trade policies By: Fox News - April 17, 2018 Farm state lawmakers fear widespread economic damage to rural America if a trade war with China erupts; Doug McKelway reports. Mary Marchant can be found in the video at 1:25 – 1:38. “We need China, China needs us. China is very important to U.S. Agriculture, and it is my sincere hope that this situation will be deescalated.” (Continued...) Listen on: Fox News Craig Gundersen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Poverty and Social Policy Debate Series: Restricting Sugary Beverages By: American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - April 2018 There is a long history of proposals to place restrictions on SNAP recipients. These proposals are based on the perception that participants are extravagant in their food purchases (e.g., comments like "the other day I saw a man using food stamps to buy lobster") and/or are purchasing the "wrong" things ("the woman and her children in front of me in line were using SNAP to buy sugary cereals"). (Continued...) Read more on: American Enterprise Institute (AEI) *John Bovay, University of Connecticut Is Food Safety Modernization Act working? By: Southeast Farm Press - December 1, 2017 “I would assess this more as a band aid than a cure-all,” says John Bovay of the University of Connecticut. Bovay is part of a team of researchers who looked at the impact of FSMA from several points of view in the paper “Economic Effects of the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act,” which was selected to appear in the journal Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. Bovay used the fresh tomatoes industry as a case study into FSMA. The paper looks at the impact on farmers, both large and small, and why some benefit from FSMA more than others. The paper also looks at the potential benefits and disadvantages to domestic growers due to new regulations. (Continued...) Read more on: Southeast Farm Press, and Food Quality Safety *Kent Messer, University of Delaware Food Labels--the Good, the Bad and the Ugly By: USDA Radio - September 19, 2017 More and more food products are carrying labels about how the food was produced, which can be good or bad or ugly. PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford and Kent Messer, University of Delaware economist. (Continued...) Listen to the three part clips on: USDA Radio Part 1, USDA Radio Part 2, and USDA Radio Read more on: Food Navigator Wally Tyner, Purdue University How Trump's Tariffs Are Squeezing His Farmer Support Base By: Fortune - April 18, 2018 “The annual loss in U.S. economic well-being would range between $1.7 billion and $3.3 billion,” Wally Tyner, Purdue University Agricultural Economics Professor, noted in a study. “Chinese economic well-being also falls if they impose a tariff, in some cases as much or more than for the U.S. The reason for that is that soybean imports are very important to their domestic economy.” (Continued...) Read more on: Fortune Mike Boehlje, Purdue University Ag economist offers strategies for weathering tough times By: Wisconsin State Farmer - April 4, 2018 Dairy farmers facing the current market challenges need to have a certain set of skills to survive until times get better. “You can’t just worry about defense, you have to have an offense,” Dr. Mike Boehlje advises dairy producers. The agricultural economics professor from the Center for Food and Agricultural Business at Purdue University was a keynoter at the business conference of the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW.) (Continued...) Read more on: Wisconsin State Farmer Brandon McFadden, University of Florida Don't let food companies scare you about GMOs | Opinion Written by Brandon McFadden: Florida Today - April 20, 2018 Humanity needs an innovative food system to not only survive, but to thrive. In 2050, nearly 10 billion people will populate the Earth. Future generations will be dealing with not only greater numbers of neighbors and denser population centers, but also a food system likely to face the negative impacts of climate change, including more bugs with the potential to damage crops, and adverse farming conditions brought on by mass drought. (Continued...) Read more on: Florida Today Kevin Kimle, Iowa State University Speculating how a trade war could impact Iowa’s AgTech companies By: Clay & Milk - April 12, 2018 Kevin Kimle, director of the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative at Iowa State University, told Clay & Milk the people in the agtech industry worry about the general prosperity of agriculture and that they’ve got plenty to deal with already due to low commodity prices. “If agriculture gets hit hard it could make it difficult for those creating a technology that you want farmers to buy,” Kimle says. “If farmers aren’t profitable they are going to be much more reluctant to make spending decisions.” (Continued...) Read more on: Clay & Milk Shaheer Burney, University of Connecticut UConn researcher: SNAP doesn’t spur poor food habits By: The Chronicle - April 20, 2018 Shaheer Burney, a postdoctoral fellow in agribusiness, works with UConn’s Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Using 15 years of data, Burney created a statistical model to observe changes in SNAP policies, income levels, demographics and overall expenditures on food away from home in SNAP households. “This is an informative result for those supporting the proposal to replace SNAP benefits with a ‘Harvest Box,’” Burney said. “Essentially, the Harvest Box does not solve the issue of fast food being purchased with SNAP dollars, because SNAP dollars don’t generally go toward eating out.” (Continued...) Read more on: The Chronicle

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*Articles in response to the AAEA Communicating Out Strategy Press Releases highlighting: Government Relations, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, Choices Magazine, General Media, and/or 2018 AAEA Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.