The December C-FARE webinar focuses on the complexities of the inflationary period the U.S. is facing.  Matthew MacLachlan, Michael Adjemian, and David Ortega will present an overview of their work on inflation as it relates to agriculture, food, and natural resources.  Then C-FARE board member Jane Kolodinsky will pose several questions to the panel and each will have the opportunity to provide their insights into the complexity of inflation in 2022 and into the new year. 

Food insecurity implies difficulty getting enough food at some time during the year. The causes are multifactorial and often include poverty, unemployment, low income, lack of affordable housing, chronic health conditions or lack of access to healthcare, and systemic racism and racial discrimination. Before and during the pandemic, food insecurity in the United States (US) has been disproportionately higher among low-income and rural populations and communities of color. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic ramifications, in 2021, food insecurity initially jumped to the highest level in decades, affecting over 20% of Americans -- approximately 1 in 4 households. According to a 2021 USDA Economic Research Service report, 10.2 percent or 13.5 million American households are food insecure. In addition, more than half (about 56 percent) of food-insecure households reported that in the previous month, they participated in one or more of the three most extensive Federal nutrition assistance programs: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); or the National School Lunch Program. 

Agriculture provides food for humans, fiber, and livelihoods for billions of people worldwide and is a critical resource for sustainable development in many regions. Regardless, agriculture also provides many ecosystem services and opportunities for climate change mitigation and removal of greenhouse gases (GHG).

To effectively leverage their assets for long-term, shared prosperity, rural communities need robust local capacity that has strong connections at the regional, state, and federal levels. Some rural communities have this strong, connected local capacity while others do not. Unfortunately, the historically challenged rural communities that most need these critical capacities and connections to alter their future trajectories are the least likely to have them.

To effectively leverage their assets for long-term, shared prosperity, rural communities need a robust local capacity with solid connections at the regional, state, and federal levels. Some rural communities have this strong, connected local capacity, while others do not. Historically challenged rural communities especially lack these critical capacities and connections to alter their future trajectories. Given these realities, how can federal policymakers and their partners best support rural communities as they work to build and maintain the capabilities necessary to create shared economic prosperity in the future?

While rural America is in no way a monolith, many rural communities have in recent years been confronted by challenging economic, demographic, and climatic trends that have limited their ability to achieve durable, inclusive economic prosperity. And yet, those same rural communities contain valuable assets that, if properly leveraged, could be a foundation on which to build equitable future prosperity and community vitality. But, doing so effectively requires robust local capacity connected to and supported by regional and national partners.

While economists recommend using market incentives, policymakers often use regulation to achieve agricultural and environmental resource management objectives. In the case of Environmental Policies, we have various forms of command and control. We have semi-market-based policies and regulations in agriculture, such as crop insurance, inventory control, biotechnology regulation, and conservation-reserve programs. Understanding the impact and motivation for these alternative policies is challenging yet valuable.

Agriculture is unique among most sectors in the economy, as agriculture's mitigation potential from both an enhancement of removals of greenhouse gases (GHG) and reduction of emissions through management of land is significant. Agriculture provides food for humans, fiber, livelihoods for billions of people worldwide and is a critical resource for sustainable development in many regions. However, agriculture also provides many ecosystem services and opportunities for climate change mitigation.

In the upcoming webinar on February 25th, we will summarize the current facts about disparities in pollution exposure across the United States and present new evidence on their causes and consequences. The panelists will summarize how residential exposure to air pollution varies by age, race, health, and Medicaid eligibility, and discuss factors believed to contribute to those disparities including differences in household income, differences in information about pollution, and discrimination in housing markets.

While the widespread availability and use of online grocery shopping is a benefit to many consumers in terms of convenience and safety, online shopping platforms are curated environments. The potential of tools like dynamic pricing or online nudges could have substantial implications for consumers and producers.

Carbon sequestration can significantly reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere and is essential to any climate mitigation scheme. This webinar will discuss the potential of geological and biological carbon sequestration, the need for policy incentives, and project paths to performance at scale.

Every five years, Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) provides Congress with an opportunity to revisit and update the child nutrition and school meal programs that it authorizes. Programs such as summer and afterschool meals, school breakfast and lunch, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) fall under this umbrella, and their implementation has changed greatly in the last few years in response to COVID-19 as well as technological changes and changing trends in areas as diverse as school food procurement and the spread of tele-health.

Current U.S. federal farm policy focuses on risk management. Projected spending for the Federal Crop Insurance Program exceeds that of all other farm-related programs authorized in the 2018 farm bill.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching impacts on most sectors of the U.S. economy, and these impacts have been uneven across rural and urban areas. Rural areas were already lagging behind urban areas in many sectors before the pandemic, including educational attainment, access to health care and broadband, and the general economy.

To further support conversations regarding innovative centers across The United States, C-FARE is hosting a panel titled Innovative Centers to Advance Integrated Programs in Food Systems. This panel will feature moderation by Gal Hochman, C-FARE’s Board Chair, and Professor at Rutgers University. Three expert panelists will join him.

To further our understanding of these issues, C-FARE is hosting a FREE online panel titled Trade Policy Under The New Administration on May 21st at 12 pm EST. This webinar is being co-hosted by the National Coalition for Food and Agriculture Research (National C-FAR) and part of a recent collaboration between C-FARE and National C-FAR.

The Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) partnered with the National Coalition For Food and Agricultural Research (NCFAR) to help host a webinar on the USDA’s ERS & NASS organizations. This event was hosted at 1 pm EST on April 6th and featured the administrators from ERS, NASS, and the C.E.O of NASDA.

This year's Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) Brandt Forum brings together scholars and business leaders to discuss the disruptions of digitalization. Because of the pandemic, the event "Impacts of a digitally-driven global economy: opportunities and challenges for U.S. agriculture" will be a two-day virtual event, April 2nd, and April 5th, 10 am to 1:30 pm EST.

To further our understanding of the economic aspects of public land management, C-FARE joined forces with the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics (AERE) to host a panel titled Managing Public Lands in 2021. C-FARE hosted this free webinar on Monday, March 15th. Our panel of speakers consisted of three scholars in public land management, forestry, and resource management. C-FARE board member Sean Cash, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, moderated the discussion.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a crucial element of the health and welfare safety net in the United States. The purpose of SNAP is to provide low-income eligible households enough money to reach the cost of a nutritious diet.

The current SNAP is undergoing changes that include a 20.3% increase in total monthly SNAP benefits and President Biden's interest in reassessing the Thrifty Food Plan's (TFP) method of determining SNAP benefits.

The Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) and the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) will host a free webinar at 12 EST Monday, February 1, to discuss aquaculture in the Northeast.

Today's farmers produce 262 percent more food with two percent fewer inputs as compared to 1950. A significant component of this increase in agricultural productivity is due to large investments in public agricultural research. The importance of research in agricultural and applied economics has only heightened as the population increases.

To give an example, for many years crop insurance in the U.S. was plagued by poor actuarial experience due to a lack of knowledge in regard to farming and agriculture. Agricultural economists were asked to tackle the issues that made crop insurance difficult and unaffordable. In many cases, the proposed solutions provided by agricultural and applied economists were adopted by the USDA. Today the crop insurance market is almost a $4 billion per year industry and sells $1 billion per year of index insurance. By improving access to quality crop insurance agricultural economists were able to help provide farmers with increased financial stability. This is a prime example of the value agricultural and applied economic research provide to the U.S. economy.

The threat of wildfires has become an increasingly large challenge faced by many Americans and as of October 1, over 44,000 wildfires have burned nearly 7.7 million acres in the United States this year. This growing threat is in part due to increasing temperatures and changing weather conditions that are making the fires far more difficult to control and easier to spread.

To further our understanding of these issues, C-FARE is joining forces with the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics (AERE) to host a panel titled Economic Perspectives on Wildfire: Preparation, Property, and Health on November 16th, at 12 pm. AERE President-elect and Resources for the Future Senior Fellow, Karen Palmer, will moderate the discussion. She will be joined by three expert panelists.

The Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE) hosted a free webinar on October 16th, 2020 to consider the challenges and opportunities facing increased broadband access in rural America. This event was moderated by C-FARE’s past president Roger Coupal.

With Americans becoming more reliant than ever on broadband due to the pandemic and an expectation to be able to compete with the larger market that is now accessible via the internet, broadband inequities are becoming more and more obvious.

Panelists Alexander Marre (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond), John Pender (USDA ERS), Anne Read (The Pew Charitable Trusts), and Mike Malandro (Choptank Electric Cooperative) discuss their on-going research into rural broadband-related issues and potential ways we could adapt our current infrastructure to create increase broadband access.

The year 2020 has focused a great deal more attention on the nation’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and the logistics of food assistance as well. On Aug. 31 the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics hosted a four-expert panel on the matter hosted by board member Sean Cash, the Bergstrom Foundation Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, and featuring panelists George Davis of Virginia Tech, Shewana Hairston McSwain of North Carolina A&T State University, and Parke Wilde of Tufts University. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture the authority to ease state requirements for reporting and proving need, and for so-called “Pandemic EBT” — extra food aid (by electronic benefits transfer) for any child who would otherwise have received free or reduced-price meals at school.

At 11 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 14, the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics will bring together a few representatives of 1890 schools, the 19 institutions established under the Second Morrill Act of 1890 that comprise a group of historically black universities (HBCU’s) seeded with federal dollars to strengthen research, extension and education in food and agricultural sciences. These representatives will be joined by others from national and regional agricultural and applied economics associations to discuss the importance of economics in agricultural curriculum, and the greater importance of 1890 universities’ graduates in the nation’s food and commodities’ policy work. This 90-minute panel webinar will be led by council board member Chyi Lyi “Kathleen” Liang, chair of the Agriculture and Applied Economics Association mentoring committee and faculty at North Carolina A&T State University, an 1890 school.

More than 300 registered for NextUp, the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics’ (C-FARE) virtual summer early career development program July 22. C-FARE Board Chair Dr. Gal Hochman of Rutgers University moderated a panel discussion that included Dr. Cynthia Nickerson, Deputy Chief Economist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Economist; Dr. John Newton, the Chief Economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation; Barbara Patterson, Director of Government Affairs for Washington-based Michael Torrey Associates; and Philip Brasher, Executive Editor of Agri-Pulse.

In our ongoing effort to catalyze informed decision making, the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE) will host a professional development panel from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EDT July 22. The event will introduce young professionals and graduate students preparing to lead the next wave of research projects, policy changes and innovation to opportunities and professional tracks in a nonprofit industry advocacy group, a large government agency, media and communications, and a private government and regulatory affairs firm. C-FARE Board Chair Gal Hochman (Rutgers University) will be joined by panelists Dr. John Newton (American Farm Bureau Federation), Dr. Cynthia Nickerson (USDA), Philip Brasher (Agri-Pulse.com) and Barbara Patterson (Michael Torrey Associates).

CESAR ESCALANTE, LILIAN BRISLEN, and BEN FELDMAN

About 280 registered for Local Food Markets, Farm Labor and Metrics in a Time of Covid-19, and dozens responded during and just after the broadcast June 26 with questions and comments for the panelists. During the 50-minute broadcast panelists had a narrow timeframe for audience questions. Here is a collection of unanswered audience questions panelists responded to in the hours and days following the broadcast.