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MSU research digs into behavioral changes to build ag resiliency
An ag economist is working to build decision tools for specialty crop growers to navigate through extreme climate events.
“What happens in one place can have broad effects into all of these other markets,” he explains. “In particularly, how do those shocks affect smaller producers, affect specialty crop producers, affect the regional food system.”
Tolhurst points to air quality warnings as an example of an environmental event that has wide-ranging impacts throughout the food supply chain.
“There are impacts directly on the restaurants that are not seeing as many customers, that people are going on the patio, and that disrupts their business of course, but it also has upstream effects,” he says.
He says while there are some risk management decision tools for row crop farmers, specialty crops are much more complex.
The research is also expected to help develop strategies for policy that would help farmers become more resilient.
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