Members in the News: Li, Plakias, Goetz, Schmit, Malone, Mintert, Thompson, Hansen, AJAE, Jaenicke, and Lusk

Wenying Li, Auburn University The Hidden Costs of Living Alone By: The Atlantic - October 20, 2021 The difficulties of living alone tend to lie more on a societal level, outside the realm of personal decision making. For one thing, having a partner makes big and small expenditures much more affordable, whether it’s a down payment on a house, rent, day care, utility bills, or other overhead costs of daily life. One recent study estimated that, for a couple, living separately is about 28 percent more expensive than living together. (Continued...) Read more on: The Atlantic Zoë Plakias, The Ohio State University What is economic surplus and how does it work? By: Insider - October 21, 2021 "In a competitive market, the market is in equilibrium when the price of a good or service is such that the total quantity of that good or service that buyers are willing and able to buy is exactly equal to the total quantity that sellers are willing and able to sell," explains Dr. Zoë Plakias, assistant professor at the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University. "At the equilibrium price and quantity in a perfectly competitive market, total surplus, which is the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus, is maximized. When surplus is maximized in a market, we say that market is efficient." (Continued...) Read more on: Insider Stephan Goetz, Pennsylvania State University Food pantries essential for reducing hunger among middle-class in 2020 By: Phys.org - October 21, 2021 "In the early days of the pandemic, workers who suddenly lost their jobs and had limited savings found themselves in a dire situation," said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD). "As a result, there was an urgency to the crisis that couldn't be solved with government programs that typically involve an application process and eligibility based on income. In contrast, community-based food services provide immediate access to food, and our research in fact shows that their beneficial impact was greater during the early phase of the pandemic across all income classes." (Continued...) Watch video on: Phys.org Todd Schmit, Cornell University When these solar farms need their grass cut, they call in some woolly landscapers By: Fast Company - October 21, 2021 Ramping up renewable energy means setting aside more and more land for solar arrays, and often it’s agricultural land that gets transferred to solar production. To some, this expansion seems like a loss of farmland, but to others, it’s a new opportunity for farmers. “The developers need to maintain the land, and to me it seems a little ironic we’re developing land for renewable energy and then, because you have to manage that vegetable growth to keep it from shading the panels, to bring in mowers that run on fossil fuels, or to spray herbicide to control that,” says Todd Schmit, an associate professor at Cornell University who focuses on agricultural economics and cooperatives, and lead of a new project (in partnership with the Department of Agriculture) that is exploring the economic benefits that could come from partnering farmers and solar providers. “There’s another opportunity that supports both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and using fuels while also benefiting agriculture.” (Continued...) Read more on: Fast Company Trey Malone, Michigan State University There are nearly 9,000 craft breweries in the US – but big beer dominates By: The Guardian - October 21, 2021 The explosion in American breweries “hides the fact that beer consumption is declining”, said Trey Malone, an assistant professor in the Michigan State University agricultural, food and resource economics department. “I think craft beer over time will become more synonymous with hyperlocalism. Most of those small breweries are basically bars that make their own beer. It’s like we’re going back to the 1800s.” (Continued...) Read more on: The Guardian James Mintert, Purdue University Nathan Thompson, Purdue University Corn Yields also up in WASDE By: High Plains Journal - October 23, 2021 Ethanol margins were strong—the strongest since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to James Mintert, director of the Center for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University. He was cautiously optimistic that ethanol margins would remain strong as pandemic restrictions eased and people drover more. Ethanol production figures were slightly above those of two years ago, before the pandemic. (Continued...) Read more on: High Plains Journal Kristiana Hansen, University of Wyoming Upper Colorado River drought measures examined By: Farm Progress - October 27, 2021 “For example, if a producer receives compensation for irrigating fewer acres in a DM (demand-management) program, they might buy a new truck and/or hire less help for harvest,” said Kristiana Hansen, water resource economics specialist and one of the study's authors. “These impacts are measured in terms of changes in jobs and income that would occur, directly or indirectly, as a result of implementing a DM program.” (Continued...) Read more on: Farm Progress AJAE Edward Jaenicke, Pennsylvania State University How to reduce waste at home By: Top Ten Reviews - October 21, 2021 Knowing how to reduce waste can not only save you money but also reduces the impact on the environment. Throwing less food away, using up leftovers, and buying less in the first place may all sound obvious, but can make a dramatic difference to the amount of trash you produce as a household. A study cited in The American Journal of Agricultural Economics found that the average US household throws out $1,866 of food every single year – and that’s without taking all the packaging and other household waste into account. (Continued...) Read more on: Top Ten Reviews Jayson Lusk, Purdue University Time to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey? By: Daily Mail, New York Post, Women Systems - October 26, 2021 ‘If you look at turkey, for example, feed has been more expensive,’ Lusk told DailyMail.com. ‘Corn and soybean is more expensive than they were a year or so ago. And so it’s more costly to produce meat, and particularly in the meat sector labor costs have increased.’ (Continued...) Read more on: Daily Mail, New York Post, Women Systems AJAE Arkansas researchers to join efforts to tackle herbicide resistant weed problem By: Talk Business, Soybean South - October 25, 2021 As weeds like Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, and barnyardgrass grow increasingly resistant to herbicides, farmers face more potential yield losses and more threats to conservation tillage in agronomic crops, according to a 2021 study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. (Continued...) Read more on: Talk Business and Soybean South

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