Agricultural Economics Department Extension Specialists

Specialty areas: Agribusiness Sales and Marketing, Farmer Buying Decisions 

Scott Downey provides annual programming through the Center for Food and Agricultural Business (CAB) on topics like sales strategy, sales management, marketing and marketing strategy. He is a frequent contributor to agribusiness publications like Agrimarketing and SeedWorld—program page.

Specialty areas: Agricultural Finance, Agribusiness and Farm Management, Agricultural Policy, Data Management

Chad Fiechter joined Purdue University in the fall of 2023 as an assistant professor of agribusiness finance. After spending nearly a decade farming in Northeastern Indiana, he returned to graduate school; first to Cornell University for an M.S. degree and then to Purdue for his Ph.D. Fiechter’s farming experience motivates and informs his research, teaching, and outreach on agricultural finance, farm/agribusiness management and agricultural policy. He is specifically interested in how information affects farm-level decision-making, such as the financing, producing and marketing decisions of agricultural commodities.

As a member of the Executive Committee for Purdue University’s Institute for Digital and Advanced Agricultural Systems (IDAAS), Fiechter is supporting the mission to revolutionize farming with cool gadgets and smart data. Alongside his Extension work within agricultural technologies, Fiechter is actively involved with the Purdue University Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the Center for Commercial Agriculture, presenting at conferences, speaking on and hosting podcasts, contributing articles and developing innovative tools for farm data management. 

Specialty areas: Production Economics and Marketing

Ken Foster specializes in contracting and other forms of market coordination, including data and information alliances in the context of food and agricultural supply chains. Ken also hosts the Purdue Ag Econ Podcast, which delves into things happening in the Department of Agricultural Economics and economic issues impacting food and agriculture.

Specialty areas: Community Development, Economic Development, Digital Inclusion

Roberto enjoys working with regions and communities around community and economic development issues. He has conducted a variety of workshops and presentations around industrial clusters, rural and socioeconomic trends, the digital age, digital literacy, broadband planning, and other topics. He has recently engaged communities and regions in comprehensive digital inclusion planning. Roberto also enjoys analyzing data and presenting it in ways that convey relevant information and result in meaningful conversations. He conducts research on topics relevant to 21st-century community and economic development and is the Vice President for Engagement for the Purdue Center for Regional Development.

Roberto's programs can be found at the  Digital Inclusion Website:

• Digital Ready Businesses:  Curriculum helps employees, entrepreneurs, and small business owners understand the basic components of an online presence.
• Digital Ready Community:  Builds capacity and empowers communities by identifying and mobilizing digital assets to increase communication, responsiveness, trust and civic engagement.
• iFront Door:  program for communities, regions, or organizations interested in assessing and proactively managing their online reputation.

Specialty area: Agricultural Business

Allan Gray’s research interests include agribusiness management, strategic planning, decision-making in uncertain environments and simulation. He also works on the Large Commercial Producer Survey, conducted every five years by the center, which explores the attitudes and buying behaviors of large commercial producers. In addition, Allan has researched the management implications of real-options thinking, the risks and returns to alternative vertical business relationships and the human capital constraints of agribusinesses.

Specialty area: Farm Planning and Organization, Agricultural Policy, Production Economics

Roman Keeney began his appointment with the agricultural economics faculty of Purdue University in August 2005 as assistant professor of farm and rural household economics. Prior to that, Keeney was a Ph.D. student in the Purdue AgEcon department. His research program explores how farm households and rural residents respond to and are impacted by changes to farm and farm-related policies. Keeney has worked extensively on the interaction between U.S. domestic farm programs and international trade barriers, focusing in particular on the distribution of gains and losses across the population of U.S. farmers. Recently, Keeney has taken on Extension responsibilities for analysis and education of farm payment programs. He is a consulted resource on the Farm Bill for the Center for Commercial Agriculture. In addition to research and Extension, Roman teaches the department’s undergraduate math programming course and graduate-level production economics course.

Specialty areas: Farmland Economics, Finance, Policy

Todd Kuethe is the Schrader Chair in Farmland Economics. He offers extension education on farmland market conditions, agricultural lending, the farm policy safety net, risk management and USDA forecasts of farm income, commodity prices, and production. His integrated research and extension program helps policymakers, farmers and landowners make better decisions to ensure a safer, more flexible and more stable agricultural economy.

Specialty areas: Agricultural Finance and Farm Management

Michael Langemeier offers extension education pertaining to financial management, crop budgets, leasing arrangements, custom rates, risk and uncertainty, strategic management and transition planning. Michael also participates in a global, non-profit network of agricultural economists (agri benchmark) that provides revenue, production cost and net return estimates for countries around the world. In addition to presenting at meetings and conducting webinars, Michael is a regular contributor to farmdoc daily (University of Illinois), the Indiana Prairie Farmer and the website for the Center for Commercial Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. His programs include: Financial Management series, Leasing Land series, and agri benchmark.

Specialty areas: Agribusiness Entrepreneurship, Agricultural Policy

Trey Malone is an agri-food economist whose primary research interests are agribusiness entrepreneurship and public policy impacts on agri-food supply chains. He has published over 70 research articles in outlets including Food Policy, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Before joining Purdue, Malone was an associate professor at the University of Arkansas and an assistant professor and Extension economist at Michigan State University. He serves as North American Managing Editor at the International Food and Agribusiness Review and the Journal of Regulatory Economics editor. 

As the Boehlje Chair, Malone wants to harness the power of Purdue’s land-grant mission and other College of Agriculture centers. Specifically, he contributes to the Extension programs and work of Purdue University’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the Center for Commercial Agriculture.

Specialty areas: Family Business, Small Business, Disaster Recovery, Rural Development

Maria Marshall is the Jim and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, Director of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development and Director of the Purdue Institute for Family Business. Marshall has a nationally and internationally recognized integrated Extension, research and teaching program focused on small and family business development. Her research and Extension programs focus on small business development and family business management. Her small and family business research is concentrated in areas such as the resource exchange between the household and the business, family business management and disaster recovery. She is particularly focused on the resource exchange between household and business when each system experiences a normative and non-normative shock. Her outreach and teaching programs seek to increase economic development through entrepreneurship and firm growth. Her research provides relevant information and publications to entrepreneurs, family business owners and policymakers. Marshall’s scholarly leadership in small business research is sought out by policy centers and organizations nationwide.

Specialty areas: Aquaculture Economics and Markets

Kwamena Quagrainie holds a joint appointment in the Agricultural Economics Dept (70%) and the Forestry and Natural Resources Dept (30%). He is also affiliated with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant program as Aquaculture Economist & Marketing Specialist. His research focuses on seafood market analysis, market definition, identification of value-added opportunities for aquaculture products and economic analysis of aquaculture farming enterprises. He works with the aquaculture industries in Illinois and Indiana, aquaculture producers, aquaculture associations, distributors, restaurants and consumers to develop viable markets for Indiana and Illinois farm-raised aquaculture products. His primary extension responsibilities focus on providing assistance to aquaculture producers in pursuing and realizing economic efficiencies and market development opportunities. He also provides training and educational materials for farmers and Extension Educators in farm business management, including enterprise budgeting. His programs include the Aquabusiness and Aquaculture.

Specialty area: Horticulture Business

Ariana Torres’ research focuses on the decision-making processes of specialty crop farmers, along with customers’ perceptions and preferences. Her expertise includes the economic modeling of adoption of new technologies, the development of decision-making tools for specialty crop growers and the economic impact of growers' decision-making processes. Her research provides relevant research-based information to her extension program, Horticulture Business, to provide training and publications to farmers, business owners, Extension personnel and policymakers. Her recent programs include the HortCalculator, an online financial tool developed by the team at Purdue Horticulture Business, led by Torres. HortCalculator provides farmers with crop- and farm-specific enterprise budgets and financial analyses to help farmers monitor profit and expenses, make real-time investment decisions and mitigate market risks.

Specialty areas: Family Business, Farm Succession Planning, Family Business Functionality, Disaster Recovery

Renee Wiatt is the family business management specialist for the Purdue Institute for Family Business, where she serves as editor for the PIFB quarterly newsletter. She is the Purdue Extension Succession Planning Team specialist and the department representative for the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Specialist Association (PUCESA). Renee is also a member of the NC1030 Multi-State Research group that focuses on sustainable families, firms and communities in times of change. She works on extension and applied research in family business management and collaborates with partners such as centers focused on agriculture and families, Extension teams focused on agriculture and farm management, and researchers to develop funded programming focused on family business management. She is responsible for coordinating with producer associations to determine family business needs as well as conducting research and fundraising focused on family businesses. Visit the PIFB website to subscribe to PIFB updates, read the latest PIFB Quarterly Newsletter and answer the PIFB Question of the Month. 

Specialty areas: Farm Business Management, Consumer Perceptions of Agriculture, Decision-Making

Nicole Olynk Widmar's teaching, research and Extension activities focus on farm business management and production economics. Widmar strives to conduct applied research that informs decision-making on commercial agricultural operations. She is interested in applied work that links farm management with the biological components of on-farm production. Her work incorporates both the economic outcomes of a decision and the uncertainties or efficiencies that arise from the biological process underlying the production process. In collaboration with the Center for Food and Agricultural Business, she has launched Consumer Corner, a blog that provides outreach materials/articles devoted to interpreting and analyzing consumer behaviors to “derive insight you can take home to the farm.” She is an active collaborator with colleagues in the College of Agriculture and College of Veterinary Medicine, presenting livestock market outlook annually for the Purdue Veterinary Medicine Fall Conference and providing supporting materials for livestock-oriented programming throughout the year.

Specialty areas: Community Development and Regional Economics

Michael D. Wilcox, Jr., is a Community and Regional Economics Specialist in the Department of Agricultural Economics. Wilcox also serves as the Assistant Director and Program Leader for Community Development with Purdue Extension, joining the Extension staff in 2012. His Extension responsibilities include staff development and program planning, development, evaluation and reporting. He is also a Senior Associate at the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD), leading and supporting Center projects related to regional development. He also serves as the Associate Director of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD). Wilcox furthers the mission of Purdue Extension by fostering innovative, high-impact Extension programs. Specifically, he provides motivation, strategy, vision, and coordination for the development and delivery of Community Development Extension programs that address the diverse needs in Indiana communities and beyond. 

Wilcox’s Extension and research work integrates the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability into addressing community and regional economic issues, with a focus on entrepreneurship, placemaking and community capacity building. His Extension signature programs include Business Retention and Expansion, Enhancing the Value of Public Spaces and Creating Healthy Communities. Wilcox has been involved in research and Extension projects centered on the marketing of tropical tree crops in western Africa and Latin America and conservation agriculture in southern Africa.