By Amy Mayer
At the start of 2020, the agricultural economy was poised for a good year.
Then came COVID-19 and like almost every other sector, it tanked. But Chad Hart, an economist at Iowa State University, says that solid footing is still the foundation for an outlook that is not all doom and gloom.
Hart says the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates that the U.S Department of Agriculture released this week suggest the growing season and 2020 harvest may be tough, but not devastating. Higher yields will offset lower prices. And Hart says COVID recovery should bring about some of the relief from trade tensions that economists anticipated.
“They’re looking for that strength to still be there, to return, as we reopen the economy, as we get the global economy moving along,” he says.
Lower prices for corn and soybeans may draw some new or less common uses for the crop, especially if the harvest is as big as predicted.
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