Purdue Agricultural Economics Podcast

How can we keep up-to-date on business research and strategy insights relating to food and agriculture? Listen here as Dr. Scott Downey, associate director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and associate professor in the Agricultural Economics Department, explains exactly how with the Quarterly Review. In addition, learn how to access this great new resource, or even help out!

Join us this week as we discuss the Ag Economy Barometer with David Widmar, a senior research associate for the Center for Commercial Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. Get an inside look at what brings the barometer to life and how he and a team of researchers gather data to measure the outlook of agricultural markets.

Is there a scarcity of communication in agriculture? And is this breakdown endangering the future of food and agriculture? Join Ken Foster as he explores these questions with authors Jessica Eise and Whitney Hodde as they discuss their book, The Communication Scarcity in Agriculture. Changing demographics, cultural shifts, technological advances and agriculture’s silence, argue Eise and Hodde, all combined to create the perfect storm – a great chasm between those who know, and those who don’t know, agriculture. Listen now to get the whole story!

Dr. Robert Thompson joins Ken and Jessica to discuss the topic of his Snyder* Lecture -- the Changing Geopolitics of Agriculture. Tune in as discusses feeding the world and the future of agriculture worldwide.

*The James C. Snyder Memorial Lecture is the Department of Agricultural Economics’ signature event at Purdue University. The lectures were established at Purdue in February 1975 as a memorial to a distinguished member of the faculty. 

Tune in as Dr. Rhonda Phillips, Dean of Purdue University's Honors College, shares how we can become involved with local food within our community. As she chats with Ken and Jessica, they discuss her recent book, Growing Livelihoods: Local Food Systems and Community Development, as well as the urban food movement and connection between food and community.

The tables are turned in this podcast as co-host Ken Foster becomes one of the interviewees! He and Colleen Kelly, International Academic Programs Development Specialist at Purdue University, discuss a study abroad program they are developing in Belize. Join them as they talk about this Central American country, its history and potential for study abroad.

Human talent is one of the most important investments food and agribusiness firms make. Dr. Michael Gunderson joins Ken and Jessica to discuss a recent performance management in agribusiness survey and the interesting findings; performance management does matter.

When Ken posed the question, 'what challenges face agriculture?' He got the same response from both Dr. Tahirou Abdoulaye and Tom McKinney: communicating the importance of biotechnology in agriculture. Tahirou and Tom were honored this year with Purdue Ag's Distinguished Alumni Award, and both hail from the Agricultural Economics Department. Despite unique positions and locations, they both agreed that this issue is important to the future of agriculture.