Consumer Perception of Farmers
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Farms are the foundation of our food system, but a lot can happen between the farmgate and consumption. Ag economist Dr. Trey Malone believes it’s important to convey that producers have little input on goods once they leave the farm.
Malone... "I think that in agriculture or people's perceptions of agriculture more broadly, they have this belief that it's just the farmer who makes choices. Well, I don't think that that's fair. I think that farmers are a part of this very big system and, they're an integral part. They're very, very, very, very important, but you have ag retailers that are making recommendations on what they're going to do for input choice. You have feed yards who are going to make choices on what the market is going to look like, when they, you know, decide to go to slaughter. I mean, you have all of these different components of the agri-food supply chain, if we want to call it that, all have their own incentive structures as to why they make the choices they do.”
Dr. Malone says he sees this regularly with concerns around animal welfare and sustainability.
Malone... "There is this belief that like farmers are the problem or something. And I really just don't find that to be true. I think that the farmers are responding to the markets, to the policies, and to the honestly, oftentimes the options that they might be able to choose."
Again that’s Dr. Trey Malone, ag economist at Purdue University.
