The economy never lets a crisis go to waste: Hart

April 6, 2020
News

Dr. Chad HartChad Hart, associate professor, was interviewed for a April 5 Marshalltown Times Republican story, "A threatened economy in a hopeful community."

“We are definitely suffering from an economic contraction,” said Chad Hard, Iowa State University associate professor in economics. “We’re trying to figure out how do we keep our economy functioning at a time when we have to social distance for a public health emergency? At the same time you see other businesses trying to ramp up, trying to add staff because they’ve been designated an essential industry,” Hart said. “The economy never lets a crisis go to waste. We’re seeing businesses shift how they do things to work around this crisis.”


Hart was a guest on the April 6 Episode 36 Farm Bureau's Spokesman Speaks podcast, "How agriculture is fighting coronavirus."

"It's a mixed bag for agriculture right now. What we're seeing in the marketplace is some positive news, some negative news. The real impact has been on the livestock industries. We've seen while retail sales have jumped fairly strongly, we've also seen futures prices for live cattle and lean hogs nosedive on concerns about the ability of the supply chain to move forward."


He was also quoted in an April 9 Des Moines Register story, "From closed factories to falling corn prices, rural Iowa feels widespread impact of the coronavirus pandemic."

Chad Hart, an ISU agriculture economist, said small businesses already have taken a big risk, just opening and operating in rural Iowa. "COVID-19 throws a bunch of additional risk on them, and for some, it will be too much."
Hart said that's a big issue in rural Iowa, where much of the economy remains tied to agriculture — from seed production to farm equipment manufacturing and meat processing. The income that farms and the farm-related industry generate supports Main Street businesses like restaurants, bars and hardware stores.

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