Assorted Links

October 26, 2016

A Nielsen report on the market for "clean" and "natural" meats
David Zilberman at UC Berkeley has a nice post summarizing the ups and downs in the history of Monsanto
A report, based on USDA data, suggests that there has been a rapid rise in the number of hens in cage free systems
Remember the controversy over the World Health Organization's cancer agency classifying glyphosate (aka Roundup) a probable carcinogen? According to this story, the agency is now asking experts who participated in the decision not to share emails an communications in response to freedom of information requests.

October 3, 2016

The New York Times published several letters responding to my piece on environmental improvements at large farms. I'm happy to have sparked a conversation!
My paper with Trey Malone on the effect of California's animal welfare laws on egg prices has been officially published by the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. I should note that the state of Massachusetts has a ballot initiative before voters this November that will, if passed, make its egg-housing policies similar to those in California.
Speaking of Trey, another of our co-authored papers was finally released by the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy. The paper looks at the effect of state alcohol laws on the number and type of breweries in the state. "We find that allowing breweries to sell beers on-premises as well as allowing for breweries to self-distribute have statistically significant relationships with the number of microbreweries, brewpubs, and breweries."
Interesting result from analyses of NHANES data: "A very small percentage (2.1%) of the U.S. population aged 1 year and older identified themselves as vegetarians; and within this group, only about 3% were true vegans - they did not report consuming any animal protein sources on any given day" and "Among these self identified vegetarians, almost half reported consumption of meat, poultry, or seafood."

August 29, 2016

I had a nice discussion with Ron Hayes on the Oklahoma Farm Report on what we've learned from the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) and we also covered several other issues affecting agricultural producers.
My blog post on the Berkeley soda tax has prompted some reaction from Parke Wilde at US Food Policy blog and Marion Nestle at the Food Politics blog. Despite what is implied by these posts, I haven't changed my stance on the issue: acknowledging a reduction in soda consumption from a soda tax isn't the same as saying a soda tax causes a substantive change in weight or public health or that it improve's people's overall well-being.
The podcast Missed in History had a recent episode on Butter vs. Margarine, and it is an interesting account of how protectionists tendencies can often hinder new food innovation, and it outlines the often grey area between consumer protection and producer protectionism