Americans can expect to pay more for groceries due to high commodity prices driven by this year’s drought, but food prices likely won’t hit their peak for a few months. Corn prices have soared throughout the summer due to the historic drought that has withered much of the nation’s prime farmland, which has driven up feed costs for livestock and poultry producers. Those high prices will be passed onto consumers in the form of increased costs at the grocery store, but it will take between six and nine months for those increases to show up on store shelves.

Chad Hart and Shane Ellis of the Department of Economics share their insights in this recent ISU News Service article written by Fred Love. Find the article at: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2012/08/29/grocerypricestorise

Diana McLaughlin (pictured left with Dean Beate Schmittman) was recently awarded with the Professional & Scientific Outstanding New Professional Award at LAS Fall Convocation 2012. She currently works as an Administrative Specialist III, a role which she took on in 2009, but started her career in the Department as a stenographer in 1973.

The Department of Economics at Iowa State University was honored through numerous recognitions at the recent Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) 2012 Awards & Fellows Recognition Ceremony in Seattle, Washington, August 12 - August 14.

The Iowa State University Agricultural Business Club won two major awards at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference in Seattle earlier this month.

The club was named National Outstanding Chapter for the seventh consecutive year and ISU students also won the Academic Quiz Bowl for the first time in the club’s history. Read the full story by Barbara McBreen, Agriculture and Life Sciences Communications at: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/news/releases/1036/