David’s article is well written, well reasoned, and an important encouragement to practicing agricultural economists. One need not agree with all of David’s claims to buy into the larger argument that timely economic analysis on food and agriculture issues are needed to improve public policy responses and reduce vulnerabilities.
There are a couple nuances to add. First I’m not sure that “no credible agricultural economists were addressing these issues prior to crisis onset.” It may very well be the case that there were not many peer reviewed journal articles published prior to these major events, but there were certainly economists writing on blogs and newsletters and being interviewed in media. Thus, I suspect the issue is not the lack of foresight by economists, but rather: 1) the institutional constraints on the types of economic research that is publishable in peer-reviewed journals of the sort Just cites, and 2) agricultural economists’ lack of influence in converting their ideas into main stream discourse. On the latter point, media and policy makers are often not very interested in crises that haven’t yet happened. Perhaps the bar is set high to avoid false positives, or it may simply just be that attention is scarce. I have published a number of articles and editorials in top media outlets, but I have had many, many more rejected.
Let me give a couple of examples from my own writing where I’ve projected an economic outcomes of interest of the sort Just describes. I use my posts as examples simply because I know them best, but there are many other examples from my colleagues as well.
The first is from March 16, 2020 at the onset of the COVID19 shutdowns. Even before any of the major meat packing plants had shutdown, it was clear given the concentrated nature of meat packing and the reliance on labor was a vulnerability. I wrote then: