Extension & Outreach
Five faculty members have extension appointments ranging from 60 percent to full-time (Andrew Cassey, Karina Gallardo, Bidisha Mandal, Shannon Neibergs, and Mykel Taylor). A number of other faculty members have partial extension appointments and virtually all faculty in the School are, from time to time, engaged in outreach and policy education. Ongoing extension programs are carried out in farm and ranch business management, fruit and vegetable marketing, agribusiness management, local government education and economic development, and environmental and fisheries economics. Extension and outreach programs are often linked to applied research projects.
New faculty members: Mykel Taylor, agricultural marketing, consumer demand and food safety, and microeconometrics, and Karina Gallardo, agribusiness marketing, consumer demand, and value-added food products, joined SES faculty Fall 2008.
Extension Projects
Community and Regional Economics
Andrew Cassey is a developmental economist with expertise in international trade policy at the state and regional level. His current research includes the efficacy of state export promotion programs such as the location of overseas offices and trade missions. Other work studies the factors and policies affecting export choices and patterns.
Crop Marketing and Agribusiness
Karina Gallardo's research and outreach efforts are focused in the areas of value-added agribusiness development and consumer demand analysis. Specifically, consumer demand studies on food quality, food safety, and health benefits of Washington produced commodities. Additional interests include the economic assessment of the impacts of new technologies at both the farm and processor level.
Mykel Taylor is developing a research and extension program in the areas of crop marketing and consumer demand analysis. Some of her current research topics are measurement of the effects of food safety information on consumer demand and economic determinants of organic versus conventional apple production in Washington.
Health Economics
Bidisha Mandal is developing a research and extension program in the areas of health and behavioral economics. Her current research topics are assessing the Strengthening Families Program (SFP), developing an alternative method to disseminate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed), and examining the effect of maternal work status on infant feeding. Additional areas of interests include analyzing economic consequences of aging and developing models of obesity.
Livestock Economics
The Livestock Economics program is led by Shannon Neibergs and focuses on developing new economics-oriented extension programming for livestock producers and industries. The state-wide Extension program focuses on applied economics related to livestock enterprises in the following areas: 1) management education on record keeping and the financial analysis of business performance, 2) identifying the economic cost of livestock diseases and the economic benefits of their control, 3) production and marketing of value-added enterprises, 4) and the economics of livestock and the environment interactions such as livestock waste management, and forage grazing issues. Each of these program areas uses interdisciplinary teams. Program findings and educational materials are delivered through workshops, seminars and publications.
Agribusiness Management and Agricultural Marketing
The Agribusiness sector encompasses many aspects of the economy: agricultural producers, businesses that provide supplies and services to the producers (including cooperatives), businesses that add value to agricultural products, and those that facilitate the marketing of agricultural products to an ever-growing marketplace. This economic sector has undergone enormous change and will continue to evolve into the future. According to a 1995 study by William Edmondson (USDA/ERS), the food and fiber sector, including input, production, processing, and distribution (the whole marketing channel) equals 13.5% of GDP and 17.3% of jobs in the U.S
Other agribusiness sector outreach activities include: Ken Casavant, transportation economics (EWITS), public policy and marketing, Hayley Chouinard, Agricultural and natural resource policy; Eric Jessup, transportation economics (EWITS) and transportation research, and Jill McCluskey , the impact of product reputation, including green labeling. Phil Wandschneider is an Agricultural Economomist who is interested in natural resource economics, and Tom Marsh is interested in consumer demand and modeling commodity markets, quantitative methods, and natural resource economics. Shannon Neibergs has a report online that evaluates the net economic return of mechanized asparagus harvest.
Farm Management, Production and Resource Economics
Doug Young, emeritis, does research and extension related to the agricultural economics of (1) biofuels; (2) soil and air quality; (3) pest management; and (4) risk management. The Farm Management web site has numerous publications available for download. Shannon Neibergs' workshop, Surviving as a Grain Farmer in Tough Economic Times, focused on the farm management tools necessary for survival in a down economy.
Emeritis
Still active in the Agribusiness Management program is Ken Duft, retired 2007. He has ongoing projects on cooperative finance and business development. Currently Ken has special projects investigating the changes in grain storage capacity requirements as a result of the loss of CCC storage subsidies and evaluating the economic potential straw to energy ventures.
The Farm and Ranch Management extension program was led by Herb Hinman, retired in 2008. His research focused on production and finance, environmental and resource economics. Several publications are available for download on the Farm and Ranch Management can be found on the Farm and Ranch Management web site.
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