Members in the News: Smith, Funk, Rickard, Zhang, Kolodinsky, Lusk, and Sumner

Martin D. Smith, Duke University How not to fish: New rule would turn back clock for US fishing industry Written by Martin D. Smith: The Hill - April 9, 2019 In the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. fishing industry was plagued by too many boats chasing too few fish. Overfishing was rampant, profits for fishermen were low and the federal government fueled the flames by subsidizing the construction of new fishing vessels with taxpayer dollars.  By the mid-1990s, we had learned our lessons the hard way. We began to implement policies to curtail overfishing, allow stocks of fish to recover, eliminate subsidies and increase profitability. To address the legacy that our own policies had created, we spent $140 million between 1995 and 2001 to buy out fishermen by retiring fishing vessels, gear, permits. (Continued...) Read more on: The Hill Sam Funk, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation Record-Breaking Flood Could Cost $2 Billion to Iowa By: WHO-TV - April 8, 2019 Dr. Sam Funk with Iowa Farm Bureau says their analysis looked beyond the cost of lost crops, "But also looking at other activities such as lost labor income, looking at lost sales that might take place for what those farm families would normally buy in a year." Funk says the damage is bigger than other flooding events and will likely last longer. Even more flooding anticipated from the Mississippi River has not hit yet. (Continued...) Read more on: WHO-TV, NAFB, and NPR I-80 Planting Tour Central Iowa: Corn Acres Climb By: AgWeb - April 17, 2019 Economists say he’s not alone with his thought. “There’s a big difference on what’s going to happen with global trade,” said Sam Funk, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation Economist. “If we are going to have those markets jeopardized out there in the United States, that is going to back up a lot of marketplace here into Iowa. When you think of some of the basis levels, it’s not just talking about the price of the board of trade, it’s also about talking about the [the basis] level.” (Continued...) Read more on: AgWeb Bradley Rickard, Cornell University Yes, more of your fruits and veggies are from overseas By: Times Union - April 13, 2019 "What (an increase in imports) does is it brings food products into a country so consumers have access to more things, and the same things at lower prices," said Brad Rickard, an associate professor at Cornell University and an expert in food and agricultural economics. "As a society, we should embrace more imports of fruits and vegetables." "It's possible that, in the process, some producers are made worse off if they're trying to compete," he said, but "the gains that accrue to these consumers are far greater than the losses." (Continued...) Read more on: Times Union Wendong Zhang, Iowa State University Siouxlanders discuss land value trends, Chinese impact on agriculture during session By: KTIV - April 15, 2019 Dr. Wendong Zhang, an economist at Iowa State University, spoke about the ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries and the impact the trade war has had on Iowa’s ag future. He says this topic is important because China is one of the major trading partners with the United States for agriculture. “We’re at a critical juncture. We essentially have witnessed the largest trade war in human history and voted on in the last year,” said Zhang. (Continued...) Read more on: KTIV Jane Kolodinsky, University of Vermont Jayson Lusk, Purdue University Will GMO/BE Labeling Hurt Food and Beverage Sales? By: Food Processing Magazine - April 8, 2019 Jane Kolodinsky, a professor and chair of the department of Community Development and Applied Economics at the University of Vermont, wanted to see if consumer perceptions had changed since Vermont’s label mandate. She analyzed the responses of consumers who were asked to rank their attitudes about the use of GMOs in food on a scale of 1 (“strongly support”) to 5 (“strongly oppose”) between 2014 and 2017. She then compared those results to a national consumer survey, led by Purdue University economist Jayson Lusk, that asked similar questions. All told, 7,800 people were surveyed. In Vermont, Kolodinsky found opposition to GMO food fell significantly after the labeling law went into effect – by 19 percent. In the rest of the country, where the federal labeling law was not yet in effect, opposition continued to rise. (Continued...) Read more on: Food Processing Magazine Daniel Sumner, University of California, Davis Ag Census: Don't panic over numbers, expert says By: Farm Progress - April 12, 2019 Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California’s Agricultural Issues Center in Davis, says some of the data points in the just-released 2017 census “deserve interpretation,” such as an apparent increase in female producers from 969,672 to more than 1.2 million nationwide. “One of the really interesting changes is who reports as a farmer,” Sumner tells Western Farm Press. While for many years respondents would simply list the principal operator, the latest census gave farms a chance to list as many as four operators, up from three in 2012. (Continued...) Read more on: Farm Progress and Farm Progress

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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.