Members in the News: Dodson, Mark, McCullough, Volpe, Park, Adjemian, Malone, Anderson, Rucker, Thurman, Gunderson, and Boughton

Laura Dodson, USDA Economic Research Service USDA relocation has delayed key studies and millions in funding, employees say By: The Washington Post - October 2, 2019 Laura Dodson, an economist and acting vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, the union chapter that represents ERS employees, had been working on what was to be a two-year-long report on the herbicide dicamba. Soybean farmers use dicamba where weeds have developed resistance to another herbicide, glyphosate. But dicamba “has serious negative effects to neighboring farms who don’t plant dicamba-resistant seeds,” Dodson said. “It can essentially wipe out their whole crop.” (Continued...) Read more on: The Washington Post Trump didn’t just move our agencies. His administration gutted us. Opinion Piece written by Laura Dodson: The Washington Post - October 2, 2019 The desks are mostly empty now, the halls littered with discarded books and papers covering decades of scientific work. Someone already pulled down the pictures, most of them taken by members of our staff, of tractors and corn and cattle, of American farm families and of people around the world who eat American-grown food. These photographs once provided little daily reminders of our calling. (Continued...) Read more on: The Washington Post Tyler Mark, University of Kentucky Amid Trade War, Farmers Lean on a New Crop: Hemp By: The New York Times - October 6, 2019 The farm bill expanded cultivation: Illinois is one of 13 states planting hemp for the first time this year, according to Vote Hemp, an advocacy group. An estimated 285,000 acres of hemp were planted nationwide compared with about 78,000 acres in 2018, according to the Brightfield Group, a Chicago-based market research firm for the cannabis industry. About 87 percent of hemp grown this year will be used for CBD, according to Brightfield. “It went from a trickle to a flood,” said Tyler Mark, an agricultural economist at the University of Kentucky who studies hemp. (Continued...) Read more on: The New York Times Michael McCullough, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Richard Volpe, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Timothy Park, USDA-Economic Research Service Michael Adjemian, University of Georgia Is Wine Really Healthier Than Beer? By: Time Magazine - September 27, 2019 Some of the most recent evidence finds that some types of beer may be even healthier than red wine. A 2016 study in the Journal of Wine Economics analyzed the shopping habits and health outcomes of more than 30,000 Americans. After controlling for diet quality, stress, and other variables, the study found the incidence of heart disease and type 2 diabetes was lower among moderate drinkers who bought craft beer instead of other types of alcohol. “This effect was slightly bigger than for red wine,” says Michael McCullough, a professor of agribusiness at California Polytechnic State University, and one of the authors of the study. Meanwhile, the consumption of “macro” beer—the term applied to non-craft beers such as Budweiser—was associated with much smaller heart and diabetes risk reductions. (Continued...) Read more on: Time Magazine Trey Malone, Michigan State University Trump Supporters More Likely to Identify As Gluten-Free: Study By: New York Magazine - Intelligencer - September 30, 2019 Three years later, a lot has changed. Parks and Rec has finished its run. Cruz is a dutiful Trump follower. And, according to a study published this summer, Trump supporters are more likely to “identify as avoiding gluten, relative to non-supporters.” Published in the June issue of Agriculture and Human Values, the study “uncovers a complex relationship between the social construction of gluten avoidance and the potential role of political views,” its authors write. As if Ted Cruz needed another “complex relationship” to navigate. (Continued...) Read more on: New York Magazine - Intelligencer and PsyPost David Anderson, Texas A&M University Cattle prices trend lower; experts cite feed costs and extreme weather By: The Eagle - October 7, 2019 David Anderson, an agricultural economics professor and AgriLife Extension economist at Texas A&M, said beef calves and cattle are Texas’ top agricultural commodity, generating annual sales of more than $10 billion in the state. “In the big picture, cattle and calf prices have been declining, and they’ve been declining for several years because production’s been growing,” Anderson said. “The cattle industry is a cyclical industry, and we’ve been expanding our cow herd nationwide. We’ve been expanding beef production and we’re pretty close to record, all-time beef production.” (Continued...) Read more on: The Eagle Randal Rucker, Montana State University Walter Thurman, North Carolina State University Bee markets still in good shape despite pressures from parasites and colony collapse disorder By: ZME Science - October 7, 2019 A new study led by researchers from Montana State University examines the economic impact of colony collapse disorders (CCD) among commercial honeybees. This research traces back to several years ago when Randy Rucker, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics in the MSU College of Agriculture, started looking into the phenomenon of colony collapse to estimate its economic impact, along with members from North Carolina State University and Oregon State University. All in all, they report, CCD isn’t a very big threat to current commercial pollinator markets. (Continued...) Read more on: ZME Science Michael Gunderson, Purdue University Family-owned Beck’s unfazed by multinational seed rivals By: Indianapolis Business Journal - October 4, 2019 “Beck’s is definitely a bit of a David taking on the Goliaths of the seed industry,” said Michael Gunderson, Purdue University professor of agriculture economics. “But they have a nice niche, and there [is] no shortage of Midwest farmers that are fiercely loyal to the brand.” Farmers are known for extreme loyalty, said Purdue’s Gunderson. “On the farm, you see some farmers who only wear green because they’re loyal to [tractor and implement maker] John Deere and others who are so loyal to Case, they’ll only don red,” Gunderson said. “That’s the way it is. And the seed decision is where we see the most loyalty due to the complexity of the decision. Getting farmers to shift from one seed to the next is a monumental challenge.” (Continued...) Read more on: Indianapolis Business Journal Duncan Boughton, Michigan State University Real rural wages rise 40pc in just five years: study By: Myanmar Times - September 27, 2019 Real rural wages increased by around 40 percent in just five years due to labour shortages brought about by migration, a study shows. The finding was revealed during workshop organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Yangon on Thursday. (Continued...) Read more on: Myanmar Times

See other Member in the News items Know another AAEA Member who has made statewide, national, or international news? Send a link of the article to Sinais Alvarado at salvarado@aaea.org What research and topics are you working on? Want to be an expert source for journalists working on a story? Contact Allison Scheetz at ascheetz@aaea.org.

*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 2019 AAEA Annual Meeting in Atlanta.