Members in the News: January 6, 2025

David Ortega, Michigan State University Luis Ribera, Texas A&M University “Why Trump's Tariffs on Mexico Would Mean Higher Avocado Prices at the Grocery Store” By: NPR – December 23, 2024 “Broad tariffs, like what’s being proposed, is not something that we’ve seen before. We had the trade war with China back in 2018 that affected steel and aluminum, but when it comes to food, these types of policy proposals are not something that are very common or that we’ve seen recently.” "Given that avocado is a staple of our consumption here, I would say that the elasticity is not very high, meaning that even with a big increase in price, consumption is not going to change that much.” (Continued...) Read more on: NPR Amitrajeet Batabyal, Rochester Institute of Technology “Industrial Policy: Why is it Criticized and is there a Role for it in the 2020s?” By: Medium – December 24, 2024 “Industrial policy has been practiced around the world for a long time. Even though economists acknowledge that there exist a narrow range of circumstances in which this kind of policy makes sense, generally speaking, the practitioners of the “dismal science” tend to have a dim view of the ability of governments to conduct this kind of policy successfully. Why? Five reasons follow.” (Continued...) Read more on: Medium Zachariah Rutledge, Michigan State University “Migrant Farmworkers Came to Florida For Stability. They Found Danger” By: Tampa Bay Times – December 27, 2024 “Agricultural work is, by nature, punishing. It can also be dangerous. In 2022, it had one of the highest fatality rates among industries nationwide. For more than a decade, the agriculture industry has seen a decline in local workers seeking jobs. It’s generally lower wages — and it’s seasonal.” (Continued...) Read more on: Tampa Bay Times David Ortega, Michigan State University “Data Dive: Records Show Steep Rise In Foreign Ownership Of Hawaiʻi Farmland” By: Civil Beat – January 2, 2025 “US Farmers Fret Over Trump's Deportation” By: Barons – December 30, 2024 “Michigan Eggs Must Be Cage-Free by 2025 as New Sales Law Takes Effect” By: Bridge Michigan – December 13, 2024 Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee “Report Details More Economic Struggles for Tenn.’s Ag Sectors” By: Morning Ag Clips – December 22, 2024 “The state’s agricultural and forestry industries directly and indirectly contributed $103 billion to the Tennessee economy. 2024 was a struggle for many of our producers and sectors. Next year could also be difficult, with trade policy uncertainty, low crop prices, drought- and hurricane-reduced feed supplies and high input costs.” (Continued...) Read more on: Morning Ag Clips Hunter Biram, University of Arkansas “From Mississippi River Lows to Rising Costs: Arkansas Farmers Brace For Uncertain 2025” By: Southwest Times Record – December 23, 2024 “The good news is that the lame-duck session has not entirely sidelined farm country,” said Hunter Biram, an extension economist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “However, even with another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers will lack the robust safety net needed for 2024 and 2025.” (Continued...) Read more on: Southwest Times Record Michael Adjemian, University of Georgia “Farmers Still Reeling Months After Helene Ravaged Crops” By: Farms.com – December 24, 2024 “Helene's devastation shouldn't have much impact on consumer prices because crops grown elsewhere can make up for most shortage.” (Continued...) Read more on: Farms.com David Ortega, Michigan State University Amy Hagerman, Oklahoma State University “Egg Prices Soar Ahead of Holiday Season: Why?” By: Retail Wire – December 23, 2024 “You have shocks to supply and increase to demand. That’s a recipe for prices to go up — in this case quite significantly.” “Egg production is a complex system. The bird flu outbreak creates added volatility into that supply chain, which makes it very difficult to break apart how much of the price increase is associated with true cost increase in the supply chain. (Continued...) Read more on: Retail Wire Dawn Thilmany, Colorado State University “Are Colorado's Egg prices Due For a Big Jump in January? Not Necessarily, and Here's Why” By: Coloradoan – December 24, 2024 "There’s just been supply shocks happening consistently, then you add this (cage-free) policy on top and it’s just a recipe for higher costs. When you’re starting with a base price of eggs that pre-COVID might have even been below $2, that’s why price increases are creating a bit of a shock for folks. Cage-free eggs are typically somewhere between $1 and $5 more expensive per dozen than those produced in caged facilities.” (Continued...) Read more on: Coloradoan Timothy Beatty, University of California, Davis Goeun Lee, University of California, Davis “Agricultural Workers Reduce Hours Or Move Locations To Avoid Wildfire Smoke” By: Eurasia Review – December 30, 2024 “When this smoke is really heavy there’s a large reduction in the amount of people in a field in day.” “We could figure out very rich hourly information of where these farmworkers went and if they moved to another location. This is kind of the first application of this data to answer some important questions in agricultural economics.” (Continued...) Read more on: Eurasia Review Paul Mitchell, University of Wisconsin, Madison “For Wisconsin Farmers, Farm Bill Extension Brings Relief, Uncertainty” By: WXPR – January 1, 2025 "Prices have been declining on the corn and soybeans and the processes used to create this support in these times of thin, negative margins, they're out-of-date. Those floors were set in 2018, and you know, we've gone through a lot of inflation and so, $1,000 isn't what it used to be." (Continued...) Read more on: WXPR James Mintert, Purdue University “Dr. Jim Mintert Retires from Purdue as Ag Econ Professor, Director of Center for Commercial Agriculture” By: Hoosier Ag Today – January 2, 2025 ““I’ve been a Land Grant University faculty member for 38 years, spending the first 23 years of my career at Kansas State University before joining the Purdue faculty 15 years ago and I could not have chosen a better career path! Developing and conducting educational programs and applied research designed to address the needs of commercial agricultural producers has been immensely rewarding.” (Continued...) Read more on: Hoosier Ag Today Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign “Economics Say Cash Rents Should Decline in 2025” By: Brownfield – January 3, 2025 “Cash rents have risen quite considerably in the last couple years, particularly since 2020. Getting them back to 2020 levels isn’t going to get us to profitability, but it’s a start.  Cash rents on this rented land is going to be difficult to justify from the return that we’re getting.” (Continued...) Read more on: Brownfield