Chad Hart, associate professor, was interviewed in an April 14 Hoard's Dairyman story, " Farm Management Resources Available during COVID-19."
As difficult as the last few weeks have been, Hart said he’s optimistic that markets will improve when we get beyond the pandemic.
“When you think about the underlying demand for our product, it’s still very good,” he said. “What the markets are signaling is once we get past this market disruption, there is reason for optimism again.”
Hart was quoted in an April 15 Chicago Tribune story, "With the loss of coffeehouse lattes and school lunches, dairy farmers face tough choices. Corn and soybeans are also hurting in an economy battered by coronavirus."
So while farming has not been as hard hit by coronavirus as other parts of the economy, it has had less room to fall, economists said.
“The agricultural economy is faring better than other sectors, but that’s also because the agricultural economy was under pressures before COVID-19,” said Chad Hart, associate professor of economics and a crop markets specialist at Iowa State University.
April 15, David Brown, WAND TV in Decatur, Illinois, interviewed Chad Hart, grain markets specialist, about the current commodity markets and impact of plant closing, etc., on farmers.
Hart was quoted in an April 19 Des Moines Register story, "Virus Outbreak Hitting Farmers, Rural Iowa Business Owners."
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.”