AFRI – FAS Economics, Markets and Trade (A1641)

Program Area Priority: This program area priority supports research on development of theories, methods and applications of agricultural economics. It encourages applications in the following broad areas: agricultural market structure and performance; competitiveness in international trade and domestic markets; agricultural production and resource use; consumer behavior; farm labor and immigration and policy; agricultural policy design and impacts; technology development and adoption; and science and innovation policy.

The program area priority scope includes, but is not limited to:

a. Examine the economics of agriculture and food policy, including changes in trade, immigration, crop insurance, price stabilization and income support.

b. Factors addressing farm labor shortages, contributing to development and adoption of labor-saving or substituting technology; implications for farmer and farm labor economic welfare. Address the particular concerns regarding technology adoption and decision-making challenges for historically underserved farmers and ranchers.

c. Examine factors contributing to pest resistance in pesticide use (and other pest management approaches) and the adoption of pest resistance mitigation strategies.

d. Economic and behavioral aspects of consumption or savings behavior, consumer financial decision making; agricultural production and technology adoption, and the design and implementation of policy intended to affect those behaviors. e. Examine the causes and consequences of food and nutritional insecurity.

f. Examine the economic implications of big data on agricultural markets, industry structure, and agricultural and food value chains, how big data informs decision-making by agricultural producers, policymakers, and consumers and enhances market efficiency and performance. Development of innovative empirical methods for addressing economic analysis using big data, machine learning, and natural language processing techniques.

producers. Examine the economics and performance of the supply chains that emerge to implement new technologies, how they are affected by various policies, and their competitiveness and trade implications.

h. Examine the impact of disasters on food supply chain resilience, agricultural production, and consumer behavior.

i. NIFA and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) are interested in partnering on the following priority pending funding:

Examine the benefits to U.S. agriculture, and costs of USDA-FAS’s agricultural technical assistance and capacity building for low- and middle-income countries,

• Economic and trade impacts of agriculture market access barriers including barriers to regulations that govern the use of genetically-engineered organisms for product approval and import.