Michael Roberts, an economist from North Carolina State University, will speak on “Food Commodity Prices: Stylized Facts and Prospects for the Future,” at 3:30 p.m. April 5 in the Hardin Hall auditorium. The talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of a two-day visit sponsored by the School of Natural Resources and the Department of Agricultural Economics.
Roberts, who is in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at NCSU, will discuss how climate change, biofuel production and other factors may influence supply and demand of rice, wheat, maize and soybeans in coming decades. He said that these four crops cover about half the world’s arable land and amount to three-quarters of the caloric base of world food consumption.
Before joining NCSU Roberts was with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. His research focuses on the intersection of agricultural and environmental economics, and he has published many papers on the effects of U.S. agricultural policies on production, land use, land values and the size of farms. He is also researching how to design simple, cost-effective ways to buy environmental services such as carbon sequestration from farmers and land owners.