Ag may be helped by timing of Covid-19
A CSU agricultural economist says there is a silver lining to the timing of the Covid-19 illness that is spreading around the world.
In most of the US, the growing season is not in high gear.
Dawn Thilmany, A Colorado State University Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics says right now, labor demand is not at its peak. But, that will be an area of concern if the coronavirus-caused work stoppages last into Spring.
Thilmany: “ A lot of our farms that are labor intensive are using H2A labor , which is us using contractors to bring people into the country for a specific job. There has been nothing I have found stated yet as to how they’re going to manage that situation given we’re now clearly going to start seeing borders scrutinized . I think that is all yet to be determined. The good news is so far the average farmer except for maybe dairy is not feeling anything more than what they were already feeling from some of the trade disruptions we had even previous to coronavirus.”
Thilmany says on average the US is a net importer and that should help our domestic producers. Ag is the difference there but, nationally exports are a majority are non-perishable items. The unknown factor is how long the coronavirus-caused work slow downs will last.
The longer the virus is uncontrolled, the more impact on agriculture.
