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A Roundup of Resources: COVID-19 Impacts on Food and Agricultural Markets

With restrictions on travel and in-person meetings, it has been encouraging to see my agricultural economics colleagues take to thew web with a wealth of information for farmers, the food industry, and consumers. Here is a non-exhaustive list of applied research and outreach that might be useful.

  • Larry DeBoer from Purdue provided some comments on possible macro-economic impacts at the onset of COVID-19 in the U.S.

  • Jim Mintert and Michael Langemeier from Purdue will host a webinar on April 1 on the spring crop outlook in light of COVID-19 events and USDA report releases.

  • This piece from Ken Foster and Mike Boehlje at Purdue entitled “Managing in Times of Financial Stress” is as relevant today as it was when it was first written in the wake of the Great Recession

  • Roberto Gallardo from Purdue released this publication with some interesting data on rural American's ability to work from home, broadband access, and in the midst of COVID-19.

  • Some estimated impacts of COVID-19 on local and regional food markets by Dawn Thilmany, Becca Jablonski, Deb Tropp, Blake Angelo and Sarah Low.

  • Trey Malone and Aleks Schaefer from Michigan State hosted a discussion yesterday “to answer the difficult questions the coronavirus global pandemic is having on our food supply chain and the economy.” (I haven’t seen a recording of this posted yet, but will put a link to it if I find it).

  • Brian Briggeman, Dan O’Brian, Glynn Tonsor, and Mykel Taylor from Kansas State are hosting a series of upcoming evening Zoom meetings on impacts of COVID-19 on the macroeconomy, grain markets, livestock markets, and land markets.

  • Derrell Peel from Oklahoma State and Josh Maples from Mississippi state hosted a webinar on COVID-19 And cattle markets this past Thursday.

  • The Farmdoc team at the University of Illinois is hosting a webinar series to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on Midwest agriculture each Tuesday and Friday at 12pm EDT.

  • Diane Charlton of Montana State talks about labor issues in agriculture on NPR’s Planet Money.

  • Since my post last week on coronavirus and food markets, I’ve been inundated with media requests discuss the subject (see a few quotes in the New York Times, Bloomberg, etc.). I’ve taped segment for ABC’s 20/20 and Freakonomics that should air some time in coming weeks.

Addendum

Several new resources have come in during the past couple days. I won’t try to keep this list up to date indefinitely, but wanted to mention a few more helpful resources.

  • Dawn Thilmany at Colorado State and Laurian Unnevehr, formerly with USDA-ERS, gave a webinar on economic impacts of COVID-19 on food manufacturers.

  • Here is Marin Bozic from University of Minnesota on COVID-19 impacts on dairy markets.

  • A CNBC segment on COVID-19 and food supply featuring Derrell Peel at Oklahoma State, among others.

  • I chatted with Dani Nierenberg of FoodTank.