The conflict’s direct impact on farm profitability in the 2026 crop year is likely to be modest and uneven. A more significant farm-level reckoning is coming in 2027 if Strait of Hormuz restrictions persist into the fall 2026 input purchasing and spring 2027 planting cycles.

Hubbell and Balagtas examine data from 2025 and explain the factors that drove changes to food prices. Looking forward, they discuss projections for food prices in 2026 and the policies and events that will affect them.

Medicaid expansion represents a major injection of federal dollars into local economies. This new brief from Montenovo highlights research on the role of ACA expansion in directing federal funds toward high-need, low-income U.S. counties.

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2025 what this report would look like in the first few months of 2026, my thoughts might not have been safe to print. Now that it is the first few months of 2026, however, I am happy to report that, despite my dire predictions, things are just fine in the Department of Agricultural Economics graduate programs.

Identifying the chocolate attribute preferences of local consumers can stimulate demand and further grow the sector. Understanding these preferences is crucial for local producers to align their products with consumer expectations, ensuring the industry’s sustainability and potential expansion into other markets.

This article examines gender differences in self-employment composition and outcomes across the Midwest. It finds that while non-family businesses dominate overall, women are more concentrated in lower-profit firms, with family businesses playing a central role in higher earnings and intra-household caregiving distribution.

Mental health issues are a bigger challenge in rural areas and often worsened by limited access to care, stigma and workplace constraints. This study highlights the prevalence of common mental health issues among rural employees and underscores the need for targeted strategies that meet the unique needs of rural small business employees.

State-led farmland purchases can influence land prices beyond the parcels directly acquired. Using Indiana’s LEAP District as a case study, this report shows that public land acquisition significantly increased local farmland prices and affected neighboring counties, with important implications for farmers and policymakers.

How much do soil maps matter for climate policy? Quite a lot. We find that differences across major global SOC databases can translate into significant changes in land-use emission estimates, making SOC baseline choice a critical part of agricultural policy analysis.

The Role of Phosphorus in Global Food Systems and Its Link to Food Loss and Waste Agriculture has become reliant on phosphorus (P), a non-renewable resource essential for plant growth (Cordell et al., 2009; Scholz & Wellmer, 2015). Furthermore, there…