Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Free Commentary: Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Food and Agricultural Markets


 This paper examines the many economic factors and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the agriculture sector. In efforts to slow down the spread of COVID-19, many states and countries shut down several economic areas such as tourism and entertainment venues, restaurants, personal services, and some manufacturing facilities. This has led many areas into a recession. The authors of this paper examine the effects this recession has on these topics: macroeconomics; trade; supply chain; consumer behavior; food service/grocery; meat processing; forestry and wood products; local food systems; food waste; food insecurity; major commodity crops; agricultural finance; agricultural labor; rural health care; and research and outreach priorities.

Co-chairs: Jayson Lusk, Purdue University and John D. Anderson, University of Arkansas

QTA2020-3, 44 pp., June 2020, Available free online.
https://www.cast-science.org/publication/economic-impacts-of-covid-19-on-food-and-agricultural-markets/
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Monday, June 29, 2020

Members in the News: Malone, Michelson, Hart, Zhang, Lusk, Cochran, Bellemare, Wang, Ortega, Gerlt, Sumner, Gomez... et al.

Trey Malone, Michigan State University
Grocery items getting more expensive and alternatives to buy instead
By: MSN & U.S. News & World Report - June 25, 2020
"I actually think we're on the downward slope of price increases," says Trey Malone, a Michigan State University assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics. Now that the supply chain has adjusted to some of the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, prices should begin to normalize.
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Read more on: MSN & U.S. News & World Report
Hope Michelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A 'resilient' food system built on systemic vulnerabilities
By: Agri-Pulse - June 24, 2020
Images of COVID-related shocks to the American food system have stunned many of us: long lines of cars waiting at foodbanks; farmers dumping milk and burying onions and cabbages to compost back into the soil; empty shelves at grocery stores. The ironies are blunt: too much supply in some places, but too little on the shelves in others. 
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Read more on: Agri-Pulse
Chad Hart, Iowa State University
Wendong Zhang, Iowa State University
Jayson Lusk, Purdue University
Mark Cochran, University of Arkansas
Fryar foundation gives $10 million to University of Arkansas System
By: Talk Business & Politics - June 25, 2020
“The generosity of Ed, Michelle and the Fryar family will transform the capacity of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness into national leadership in the scholarship of price risk management in the areas of research, teaching and extension,” said Mark Cochran, vice president of agriculture for the UA System.
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Read more on: Talk Business & Politics
Marc Bellemare, University of Minnesota
Holly Wang, Purdue University
David Ortega, Michigan State University
White Lily Flour Has Long Held a Near-Mythological Status in the South. Now It’s Everywhere.
By: Eater - June 18, 2020
White Lily declined to comment on the expanded distribution to Eater, but David Ortega, an associate professor in the department of agriculture, food and resource economics at Michigan State University, points out that some of the recent flour distribution quirks can be tied to the significant loss of major wholesale customers like food service and bakeries, combined with high demand at the retail level. “One of the major obstacles to this switch was packaging,” he says over email — which means that any flour company that had recently stocked up on retail-size bags found itself best prepared to meet demand.
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Read more on: Eater
Scott Gerlt, University of Missouri
ASA hires first on-staff economist
By: World-Grain, Baking Business, & News Dakota - June 19, 2020
The American Soybean Association hired Scott Gerlt (GER-ult), who is the first person to take on the role of staff economist with the organization. Gerlt lives in Missouri and will work out of the St. Louis office. He’s highly regarded within agricultural economic circles, thanks to his policy work with the Food and Agricultural Research Institute, where he has more than 10 years of experience.
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Read more on: World-Grain, Baking Business, & News Dakota
Daniel Sumner, University of California, Davis
Miguel Gomez, Cornell University
How COVID is Affecting U.S. Food Supply Chain
By: USA News Hub, Medscape, & Vision Monday, - June 18, 2020
All those bare shelves? “They were dramatic, but not emblematic,” says Daniel Sumner, PhD, a distinguished professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis. Early on, panicked consumers raced to stockpile canned goods, rice, dried beans, and other staples, creating eerie impressions of scarcity in stores. But the food supply chain has remained surprisingly strong, according to Sumner. “It’s much more resilient and solid now than I would have thought 2 months ago.”
“The food service supply chain is completely disconnected from the supermarket supply chain,” he says. When farmers and suppliers lost business in the food service sector as clients shut down, it was difficult for them to pivot to the supermarket sector. “That’s why we saw vegetables not being harvested and milk being dumped,” Gomez says. “At the same time, we saw empty shelves in the stores. That shows that all the milk and foods that were heading to the restaurants didn’t make their way to the supermarkets and they were wasted.”
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Read more on: USA News Hub, Medscape, & Vision Monday
Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nick Paulson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Carl Zulauf, The Ohio State University
Expected Harvest Prices for Soybeans in 2020
By: Farms.com - June 24, 2020
We developed a statistical model that projects the 2020 harvest price for soybeans, given a national soybean yield and average of May futures prices. This projection represents the harvest price used in crop insurance.  The current U.S. yield estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is 49.8 bushels per acre. Given this yield estimate and average of actual May futures prices, the harvest price is projected to be $8.36 per bushel. An $8.36 harvest price would be 91% of the $9.17 projected price for soybeans in Midwest states. Crop insurance payments would not be triggered without yield declines even on Revenue Protection (RP) polices at an 85% coverage level. Lower yields, lower prices, or a combination of both would be needed to trigger payments. However, higher national yields would be expected to be associated with lower harvest prices, and vice versa.
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Read more on: Farms.com
Kimberly Morgan, Virginia Tech
New UF/IFAS Economist Comes ‘Home,’ Looks to Help Harness Resources
By: Vegetable and Specialty Crop News - June 23, 2020
“People drive my research and Extension programs,” Morgan said. “Specialty crops are my primary commodity of interest, and I want to look into how changing consumer preferences along with government regulations and policies may influence grower decisions to adopt new production practices.”
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Read more on: Vegetable and Specialty Crop News
Laura Paul, University of Delaware
Kent Messer, University of Delaware
Despite Coronavirus challenges, Delawareans still want to invest in cleaner water
By: Delaware Online - June 17, 2020
Just six months ago, Gov. John Carney announced his intent to invest $50 million into a new trust fund named the Clean Water for Delaware Act. These funds were to be combined with federal monies to create a pool of $100 million to help improve water quality throughout our state. 
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Read more on: Delaware Online
 
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 Jessica Weister at jweister@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.
*Disclaimer - This email is to acknowledge citations of current AAEA members and/or their research in any public media channel. AAEA does not agree nor disagree with the views or attitudes of cited outside publications.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Introducing Q Open


Developed in collaboration between Oxford University Press, the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, and the European Association for Agricultural Economics, Q Open is an innovative new open-access journal, publishing applied research across agricultural, climate, environmental, food, resource, and rural development economics. The title is inspired by the Q category of the Journal of Economic Literature’s subject classification system.

Q Open’s editors are Iain Fraser, Erwin Bulte, Vincenzina Caputo, Phoebe Koundouri, and David Lewis, and they are dedicated to rigorous and fast peer-review, aiming to provide a first decision within 4-6 weeks. To help achieve this, authors have the option to share reports from a previous submission.

Q Open’s peer-review model is based on a sound-science approach, with scientific rigour the primary consideration, and the editors’ subjective evaluation of relevance, importance, and novelty minimized.

Please consider Q Open as an outlet for your future papers.  Find out more at: https://academic.oup.com/qopen; submit at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qopen

Martin Green, Oxford University Press
Krijn Poppe, European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation
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Monday, June 22, 2020

Members in the News: Glauber, Janze, Hendricks, Steinbach, Carter, Parcell, Lusk, Tonsor, Wilson, Miao, Muhammad, Swinnen, Ortega, Wang... et al.

Joseph Glauber, IFPRI
Joseph Janze, Kansas State University
Nathan Hendricks, Kansas State University
Sandro Steinbach, University of Connecticut
Colin A. Carter, University of California, Davis
Farmers Get Billions in Virus Aid, and Democrats Are Wary
By: The New York Times & The Baltimore Sun - June 9, 2020
Months before an election in which some farm states are major battlegrounds, Democrats and other critics of the administration’s agriculture policies are expressing concern that the new subsidies, provided by Congress with bipartisan backing, could be doled out to ensure President Donald Trump continues to win the backing of one of his key voting blocs.
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Read more on: The New York Times & The Baltimore Sun
Joe Parcell, University of Missouri
The meat industry could face losses of $20 billion in 2020
By: CNBC - June 9, 2020
″Is this a once in a century event? Should we respond accordingly? Or is this something that we need to adapt to going forward? If we think it’s going to be with us then yes, it’s a pretty fragile supply chain, mainly because we’ve focused on giving consumers what they want, high-quality food at the cheapest price possible,” said Joe Parcell, director of applied social sciences and professor of agribusiness management at the University of Missouri.
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Read more on: CNBC
Joseph Glauber, IFPRI
Jayson Lusk, Purdue University
Glynn Tonsor, Kansas State University
U.S. Meat Giants Face Biggest Attack in Century From Trump Probe
By: BNN Bloomberg - June 15, 2020
Still, margins don’t tell the whole story, said Jayson Lusk, head of the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University. They are a simple calculation of the spread between animal costs and meat prices and don’t necessarily reflect actual company profits.
The flip-side of consolidation in the market is larger, more efficient facilities that operate with lower costs, which in turn means cheaper prices for consumers, said Glynn Tonsor, a professor in the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.
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Read more on: BNN Bloomberg
Norbert Wilson, Tufts University
Video: What is food insecurity?
By: Phys.org - April 10, 2020
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Read more on: Phys.org
Ruiqing Miao, Auburn University
Survey Endorses Local Branding for Alabama Specialty Crops
By: Growing America - July 1, 2019
“The idea behind the initial proposal for the project was to seek ways and define barriers for establishing and promoting original branding for Alabama products,” Miao said. “Unlike some of our neighboring states, Alabama doesn’t have many original brands for specialty crops, even though we have very good products like sweet potatoes and Chilton County peaches.”
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Read more on: Growing America
Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee
Trade war losses create need for new U.S. export markets
By: Delta Farm Press - November 26, 2019
"China has been our largest soybean export customer. Soybeans and other U.S. commodities have been diverted to other countries, but soybeans have taken the brunt of the trade war pain," Muhammad says. "China has gone from being the United States' second leading market with purchases comparable to Canada to our sixth leading market with purchases comparable to South Korea."
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Read more on: Delta Farm Press
Johan Swinnen, IFPRI
David Ortega, Michigan State University
Holly Wang, Purdue University
Agricultural Economics Professor on COVID-19's impact on food security
By: YouTube - June 12, 2020
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Read more on: YouTube
Chad Hart, Iowa State University
Joseph Glauber, IFPRI
Examining Biden’s Farm Bankruptcy Claim
By: Fact Check - June 2, 2020
The impact from the downturn will be more acutely felt once harvesting begins in late summer and farmers are unable to turn a profit on grain sales, said Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University.
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Read more on: Fact Check
Julie Caswell, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Marco Costanigro, Colorado State University
Jayson Lusk, Purdue University
Jane Kolodinsky, University of Vermont
GM food labels do not act as a warning to consumers
By: Australian News Daily Bulletin - July 30
There is an economic and political battle taking place in America over the labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods. In 2015, 19 US states considered GM food labeling legislation and three States, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont have passed mandatory GM labeling laws.
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Read more on: Australian News Daily Bulletin
Anjani Kumar, IFPRI
Scott Irwin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dwight Sanders, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Study warns against long-term commodity investments
By: The Western Producer - June 18, 2020
Irwin and Sanders concluded that buying and holding long commodity futures didn’t earn money over the long run. Their 2020 update goes further: holding passive long commodity positions actually loses money in the long term because there are transactional and financing costs to futures positions.
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Read more on: The Western Producer
Aaron Staples, Michigan State University
How climate change and COVID-19 are threatening your beloved IPA
By: Greater Greater Washington - June 9, 2020
Aaron Staples, an academic researcher based at Michigan State University, has been studying how consumer decisions drive the way brewers make beer. In a soon-to-be-published study, Staples found that consumers were willing to pay more for beer that was brewed in a more environmentally conscious way.
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Read more on: Greater Greater Washington
Frayne Olson, North Dakota State University
What rebound? North Dakota in economic crunch as virus batters oil, agriculture
By: Khaleej Times & KELO - June 14, 2020
The impact from the downturn will be more acutely felt once harvesting begins in late summer and farmers are unable to turn a profit on grain sales, said Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University.
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Read more on: Khaleej Times & KELO
Andrew Stevens, University of Wisconsin
Meat Industry Continues To Adapt To COVID-19
By: Wort News - June 16, 2020
Earlier today, WORT Producer Jonah Chester spoke with University of Wisconsin researcher Andrew Stephens to discuss how the industry is continuing to cope as the country reopens. Stephens is an assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics, and specializes in meat supply chains.
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Read more on: Wort News
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 Jessica Weister at jweister@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.
*Disclaimer - This email is to acknowledge citations of current AAEA members and/or their research in any public media channel. AAEA does not agree nor disagree with the views or attitudes of cited outside publications.
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