Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

S-1072 Multi-State Hatch Group Annual Meeting (Presentation Session and Annual Meeting)

Monday, Dember 15, 2025

Presentation Session (as part of the 2025 IATRC Annual Meeting)

Monday, December 15, 1:30 - 3:00PM

Session 7: Deal or No Deal? Re-Thinking U.S. Trade Policy (REGENCY BALLROOM B/C)

Organized Session (S-1072 Multi-State Hatch Group)

Organizer: Ian Sheldon (Ohio State University); Discussant: Lia Nogueira (University of Nebraska)

       Presentations

1. U.S. Power-Based Bargaining Redux: Implications of the WTO and Global Trade Flows. Ian Sheldon (Ohio State University)
2. Friendshoring and Agricultural Trade in a Geopolitically Divide World. Aaron J. Staples (University of Illinois), Aleks Schaefer (Oklahoma State University),
   and Trey Malone (Purdue University)
3. Are Trade Agreements Passé? Jason Grant (Virginia Tech)

Session was attended by 31 particpants fromn the IATRC.

Project Annual Meeting (Monday, December 15th, 2025, 5:00PM)

Place: Hyatt Regency Tysons Corner Center, 7901 Tysons One Place, Tysons, VA 22102

Minutes

Particpants: Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee; Aaron Staples, University of Illinois; Jason Grant, Virginia Tech; Shamar Stewart, Virginia Tech; Gopinath Munisamy, University of Georgia; Nelson Villoria, Kansas State University; Sandro Steinbach, North Dakota State University; Shawn Arita, North Dakota State University; Sunghun Lim. Louisiana State University; Ian Sheldon, Ohio State University

Meeting call to order at 5:00PM.

• Andrew Muhammad gave the introduction and review of the meeting agenda.
• Minutes from the 2024 annual meeting were approved by all attendees.
• We discussed possible AAEA Activities (workshop or invited session). Ian Sheldon and Andrew Muhammad agreed to take the lead.
• We discussed USDA-NIFA funding opportunities and project ides for next year. We also dicussed existing grant colloborations.
• Andrew Muhammad led the discussion of extension and outreach activities, Members were asked to contibute to Southern Ag Today.
• Participants discussed highlights and impacts at their institution (State Reports). (See: Accomplishments)
• Andrew Muhammad agreed to serve as Chair for another year.
• Adjourned at 6:11PM

International markets account for a considerable portion of U.S. agricultural products sales; thus, our project serves U.S. producers and agribusiness by providing them updated and relevant information and analysis related to the impacts of domestic and international polices on trade. Further, many policies affect food consumption and agricultural production. Thus, we study both international trade and agricultural and food policies. In the short term, our project outputs enhance the knowledge of U.S. agricultural producers and agribusiness regarding the potential impact of policies or regulations on marketing their products. In the medium term, U.S. producers and agribusiness could identify the potential markets and make more adequate investment decisions based on the knowledge provided from our outputs. Enhancing the knowledge of policy impacts on trade could also help producers and investors reduce the uncertainties and risk of counting on a single/dominant market and make a more comprehensive and long-term investment plan. In the long term, our study could benefit the society from developing a stronger agricultural sector through the improvement in the decision process and related financial condition of U.S. agricultural producers and agribusiness. Consumers will benefit from acquiring low-cost and diverse agricultural products when producers and agribusiness gain more knowledge in allocating resources more effectively.

Our focus is on the impacts of U.S. and foreign policies, regulations, market structures, and productivity on U.S. food and agricultural trade, the economy, and the environment. The data used in those activities are primarily obtained from USDA or public accessed websites. We highlight two of our studies below.

Short-term Outcomes: 

Stakeholders benefited from clearer, evidence-based assessments of trade risks and logistics constraints. Producers, commodity groups, and exporters used these insights to anticipate cost and market-access implications of changing U.S. trade policies, shipping conditions, and drought-related transportation disruptions. Policy-focused analyses provided decision-makers with quantified estimates of how proposed policy changes (including port fee policies and trade remedy actions) could affect agricultural export costs and competitiveness, supporting more informed evaluation of policy options. Market development and risk management work strengthened the ability of stakeholders to assess retaliation exposure and export opportunities, improving strategic planning for market  diversification and supply chain resilience.

Research conducted in 2025 examined the intersection of weather shocks, trade policy, and global land use. Key findings published in Nature Geoscience and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics quantified the feedbacks of cropland changes and assessed how trade frictions influence domestic food price stability during large-scale adverse supply shocks. A new USDA-NIFA grant was awarded in 2025 to investigate the vulnerability of international food trade to maritime shipping disruptions. The HATCH project contributed to graduate training through the supervision of three PhD students and one Master’s students.

Major activities in 2025 have focused on understanding how recent U.S. trade policy changes, including the 2025 tariffs, are affecting Michigan and U.S. agriculture and the broader food industry, with attention to implications for food prices, agribusiness profitability, input costs, market access, and supply-chain disruptions. We have also continued work on foreign ownership in U.S. agriculture, examining both emerging trends and the economic and political drivers behind the recent wave of state-level legislative actions aimed at restricting foreign ownership of farmland. In addition, We have sustained my research on food price inflation, emphasizing the key drivers of food price changes and the consequences for consumers, producers, and policy. Alongside these efforts, We have continued work on labor challenges in animal agriculture, building on ongoing analysis of the dairy sector to assess producers’ policy priorities for addressing persistent worker shortages and maintaining industry competitiveness. Finally, We have advanced research on the impacts of drought on U.S. beef prices, including analysis of how imports may mediate the transmission of drought-related supply shocks through the beef value chain.

Major focus of project concerns impact of climate policy in the context of value chains.  Specifically, if carbon policies (taxes/cap-and-trade) are targeted at carbon-intensive production of say fertilizers, how should imported fertilizers be treated at the border if they are produced in countries that have weaker carbon policies, and the objective of policymakers is to prevent carbon leakage, as well as maintain competitiveness of domestic fertilizer producers. Fertilizer production has been targeted due to the extent of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from production of synthetic nitrogen in the form of either ammonium nitrate or urea. 

The European Union (EU) has already introduced carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs) to address this issue, with fertilizer importers eventually having to purchase emissions permits in the EU, reflecting their direct (ammonia production) and indirect (electricity usage) carbon emissions.  The use of such a climate policy instrument is also being considered by US and UK policymakers. Key to the project is providing industrial organization and trade analysis of the impact of CBAMs in a multi-market setting that captures the complexity of the fertilizer input component of the agricultural and food value chain.

Outputs: See Publications and Grants, Contracts & Other Resources.

Activities: Organized and specific functions or duties carried out by individuals or teams using scientific methods to reveal new knowledge and develop new understanding.

Milestones: Key intermediate targets necessary for achieving and/or delivering the outputs of a project, within an agreed timeframe. Milestones are useful for managing complex projects. For example, a milestone for a biotechnology project might be "To reduce our genetic transformation procedures to practice by December 2004."

S1072 SAES-422: Grants, Contracts & Other Resources Obtained

 (Selected)

Recipient(s): Sandro Steinbach, Colin A. Carter, William Nganje, Carlos Zurita

Funding Source: National Institute of Food and Agriculture, AFRI Program

Amount: $800,000

Term: 2024–2028

Recipient(s): Sandro Steinbach, Raghav Goyal, Lynn Kennedy, Siew Lim, Zhulu Lin

Funding Source: National Institute of Food and Agriculture, AFRI Program

Amount: $800,000

Term: 2024–2028

Recipient(s): Sandro Steinbach, Carlos Zurita

Funding Source: Agricultural Marketing Service, Cooperative Agreement

Amount: $135,000

Term: 2024–2025

Selected Impact Statements

University of Tennessee

Title: An Updated Evaluation of United States Department of Agriculture Sugar Production and Consumption Forecasts

Results from:

DeLong, K.L., C. Trejo-Pech, and R. Johansson. 2025. “An Updated Evaluation of United States Department of Agriculture Sugar Production and Consumption Forecasts.” Accepted and Forthcoming. Sugar Tech. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-025-01676-1

In 2-3 sentences, briefly describe the issue or problem that your project addresses.

A mechanism of U.S. sugar policy mandates USDA to properly balance U.S. sugar supply and demand with sugar imports. To accomplish this, the USDA uses forecasts of sugar production and consumption, which appear in the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) monthly publication. Given the importance of these forecasts in the proper implementation of U.S. sugar policy, we evaluated the efficiency and accuracy of these forecasts from fiscal year (FY) 1992/93 through 2022/23.  

Briefly describe in non-technical terms how your major activities helped you achieve, or make significant progress toward, the goals and objectives described in your non-technical summary.

Our research resulted in a publication in Sugar Tech (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-025-01676-1). In the publication, the accuracy, bias, and efficiency properties of the USDA WASDE sugar forecasts are evaluated from fiscal year (FY) 1992/93 through 2022/23 for the US forecasts and from FY 2009/10 through 2022/23 for the Mexican forecasts. Overall, results show the forecasts are accurate, unbiased, and efficient. Thus, the forecasts are valuable to USDA’s execution of US sugar policy and provide a public service to sugar-using firms.

Briefly describe how your target audience benefited from your project’s activities.

This research benefited sugar producers, consumers, and policy makers, such as the USDA, who use and produce these forecasts. Our research helped confirm that USDA is properly implementing US sugar policy, at least by using accurate forecasts.

Briefly describe how the broader public benefited from your project's activities.

Ensuring a domestic production of sugar exists is important for U.S. consumers, as domestic food production is a national security issue. Our research helped confirm U.S. sugar policy helps to provide a reliable domestic supply of sugar, which benefits consumers who consume sugar.

Title: Developing a global methodology for estimating import demand elasticities across major agricultural sectors: insights into trade policy and market strategies

Outcome: Muhammad, A, & MD Hossen (2025) “A Global Approach to Estimating Import Demand Elasticities: Insights from Major Agricultural Sectors” Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. 4: 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaa2.70001

In 2-3 sentences, briefly describe the issue or problem that your project addresses.

Current import demand analyses often use single-country frameworks, which fail to capture global impacts of events like trade wars, supply chain disruptions, and natural disasters. These frameworks overlook how changes in one country’s trade policies can ripple through and affect trade flows among other countries. To address this limitation, the project proposes a global estimation approach that aggregates bilateral trade data across all importing countries, enabling the calculation of worldwide import demand elasticities within a unified framework.

Briefly describe in non-technical terms how your major activities helped you achieve, or make significant progress toward, the goals and objectives described in your non-technical summary.

The project’s major activity was a new way to look at global trade. Instead of studying each country separately, we combined trade data from all countries to see the bigger picture. This helped us understand how worldwide events, like trade wars or supply chain problems, affect many countries at once, giving a clearer view of global demand.

Briefly describe how your target audience benefited from your project’s activities.

The target audience for this research includes trade analysts, economists, and policy advisors who need better tools to understand global agricultural markets. The findings are especially useful for organizations and agencies that make decisions about trade policy and market strategies. This work was funded by decision makers within the USDA who are interested in improving trade modeling to support U.S. agricultural competitiveness.

Briefly describe how the broader public benefited from your project's activities.

The broader public benefits because better trade estimates and models help decision makers create policies that keep food prices stable and markets more predictable. This leads to stronger food security and economic stability, which affects everyone from farmers to consumers.

As global trade dynamics continue to shift, relying heavily on a single market—particularly China, which has historically dominated U.S. agricultural exports—has increased U.S. vulnerability during periods of trade tensions and trade conflicts. Identifying and cultivating alternative markets is essential for strengthening Tennessee’s resilience, reducing exposure to geopolitical risks, and securing long‑term export growth for the state’s producers.

University of Tennessee has partnered with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture on a strategic initiative to increase agricultural and forestry exports from the state of Tennessee. Through this collaboration, the initiative has achieved more than $10 million in new export sales, leveraging less than $300,000 in USDA funding—a significant return on investment that reflects both strong market opportunities and effective program execution.

One of the most notable accomplishments of this partnership has been the successful expansion of Tennessee timber exports to Vietnam, representing a major breakthrough in diversifying markets for the state’s forestry sector. This success highlights the importance of developing new international markets for Tennessee’s agricultural and forestry products beyond traditional destinations.

Milestones NDSU

Research activities in 2025 combined applied trade and policy analysis with advanced empirical methods, including econometric modeling, machine learning, and scenario-based evaluation of policy changes. Work integrated trade, transportation, and market data to measure how shocks transmit through supply chains and into export performance, price signals, and producer revenue risk.

Project activities also emphasized rapid translation of research into stakeholder-facing products. This included producing a series of technical reports, briefs, and white papers through CAPTS and ARPC, as well as regular contributions to the NDSU Agricultural Trade Monitor to communicate timely assessments of emerging trade risks, policy proposals, and market access developments.

Collaboration with interdisciplinary partners and external stakeholders supported analyses on global value chains, trade facilitation, sanctions, and transportation bottlenecks. Findings were disseminated through presentations and policy-oriented communications to ensure relevance for producers, agribusinesses, and decision-makers.

Published and/or advanced multiple peer-reviewed studies in 2025 on agricultural trade, shipping and transportation disruptions, and trade policy uncertainty, including work on the container shipping crisis, Mississippi River drought impacts, and trade agreement provisions assessed using machine learning.

Delivered a portfolio of 2025 stakeholder-facing outputs (CAPTS reports, ARPC briefs/white papers, and NDSU Agricultural Trade Monitor issues) that quantified policy and logistics impacts on export competitiveness and regional agricultural outcomes.

Supported applied policy evaluation through cooperative agreement work focused on risk management and market disruptions, strengthening the evidence base available for program and policy assessment.

Expanded research and outreach capacity through externally funded projects that focus on trade policy, global value chains, and supply chain resilience.

Impacts

Improved risk management and strategic planning for producers and exporters by providing quantified evidence on how trade policy shifts, retaliation threats, and transportation disruptions affect export costs, market access, and revenue risk.

Informed policy discussions by delivering timely evaluations of proposed and enacted policy changes that influence agricultural trade competitiveness, including port fee proposals and trade remedy-related cost shocks.

Strengthened regional and national capacity to respond to global market uncertainty through research that connects global value chain dynamics, trade facilitation, and sanctions to measurable outcomes in U.S. agricultural exports.

Enhanced market development insights for North Dakota agriculture by assessing exposure to trade retaliation and identifying potential market access offsets and diversification opportunities.

2025 Station Report – Kansas State University (Impact Narrative)

Research conducted in 2025 examined the intersection of weather shocks, trade policy, and global land use. Key findings published in Nature Geoscience and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics quantified the feedbacks of cropland changes and assessed how trade frictions influence domestic food price stability during large-scale adverse supply shocks. A new USDA-NIFA grant was awarded in 2025 to investigate the vulnerability of international food trade to maritime shipping disruptions. The HATCH project contributed to graduate training through the supervision of three PhD students and one Master’s student. Notably, post-doctoral researcher Micah Cameron-Harp accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Kansas State University. Graduate students presented findings on EU deforestation regulations, maritime disruptions, and supply  impacts on U.S. exports at the Kansas State University Risk and Profit Conference. Additionally, a two-part educational series on agricultural trade was developed and broadcast statewide via the "Agriculture Today" radio program.

Michigan State University

Briefly describe how your target audience benefited from your project’s activities.

The project has benefited policymakers, researchers, industry stakeholders, and the public by providing timely, policy-relevant analysis on U.S. trade policy, food supply chains, and agricultural market shocks.

In 2025, I engaged extensively with state, federal, and international policymakers on the impacts of tariffs and trade policy on agriculture and the food system. This included invited testimony before the Michigan Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture on tariffs and food supply chains, engagement and consultation with Michigan state legislators, and consultation with the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. I also participated in briefings and discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice and took part in a high-level roundtable with the Quebec Minister of Agriculture and the Canadian Consul General focused on Canada–Michigan trade relations and tariff impacts.

In addition, I shared research findings at key policy and economic forums, including invited participation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Food and Agriculture Economic Summit, an invited talk at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Midwest Agriculture Conference, and an invited presentation at the Council of State Governments Annual Meeting. These engagements disseminated ongoing work on trade policy and tariffs, foreign ownership of U.S. farmland, food price inflation, labor challenges in animal agriculture, and drought-driven shocks to U.S. beef markets, helping inform policy discussions with evidence-based insights.

Briefly describe how the broader public benefited from your project’s activities.

The broader public benefited from this project through extensive, sustained public engagement that translated complex economic research into accessible, policy-relevant insights. In 2025, I conducted more than 100 media interviews and participated in major television, radio, and print features, reaching national and regional audiences through outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and PBS. These engagements helped explain the real-world drivers and consequences of food price inflation, tariffs and trade policy, labor shortages, and supply-chain disruptions, equipping households, farmers, and voters with clearer context for understanding food system challenges.

In addition to media outreach, I organized and hosted the Noel W. Stuckman Lecture in Food Economics at Michigan State University, featuring NPR’s Scott Horsley. This event directly engaged the local community, students, and stakeholders in an open discussion about food prices, economic uncertainty, and agricultural policy, strengthening public understanding and trust in evidence-based analysis. Collectively, these activities ensured that research insights extended well beyond academic audiences, supporting informed public discourse on food, agriculture, and economic policy.

Ohio State University

Based on a revised working paper, an updated and extended version of the model which includes comparative static analysis of climate policy and CBAM choices, was presented in session held at a key professional meeting [International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC) Summer Symposium].  Here, other researchers interested in CBAMs were shown the critical importance of capturing the complexity of value chains impacted by both domestic climate policies, and the use of CBAMs.  Much of the analysis of CBAMs focuses only on Scope 1 emissions by downstream fertilizer production, ignoring Scope 2 emissions upstream that are embodied in imported fertilizers.  Also, much of the analysis of CBAMs ignores the nature of horizontal and vertical competition in a value chain, where both can affect passthrough of both upstream and downstream policy instruments – this matters in terms of whether CBAMs might be considered trade-distorting or not by the World Trade Organization (WTO), i.e., they could provide hidden protection for domestic producers, and also affect the extent to which CBAMs reduce carbon leakage.

Revised analysis of the future of trade dispute resolution presented in a session held at the IATRC’s Annual AAEA Meetings, highlighted to other IATRC researchers extent of breakdown of WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), and how the EU and United States are adopting different approaches to addressing trade disputes.  Feedback on paper from attendees incorporated into revised version of paper for publication.

Based on a commissioned paper for the Foreign Trade Review, plenary presentation of research on return of United States to power-based bargaining in its trade negotiations,  Paper presented in a research seminar attended by applied economists celebrating the 10th Anniversary of PhD Program in Economics at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, highlighting rationale for current US trade policy in the context of economic analysis of WTO, and focusing on the implications for the WTO and global trade flows.    

Briefly describe how the broader public benefited from your project’s activities.

Commissioned by Brookings Institute to write a chapter on the extent of integration of agri-food trade in North America under NAFTA/USMCA as part of their outreach work on USMCA, which is up for review in 2026, and targeted at trade policy analysts.

 Multiple outreach and extension presentations have been made to the broader public (farmers, other agricultural stakeholders, and general public) concerning current and future impact of US trade policy.  Focus has covered impact of implementation of reciprocal tariffs, as well as their legal basis. Multiple media interactions relating to trade and trade policy issues, including impact of tariffs on US agricultural exports.

Describe and explain any major changes or problems encountered in approach. 

Additionally, note opportunities for training and professional development provided, how results have been disseminated to communities of interest, and any new details regarding what the project or program plans to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals. You may also include publications here. (Maximum of 8,000 characters including spaces)

In setting up the vertical markets model, potential was allowed for CBAMs to divert fertilizers away from the EU to third country markets with weaker climate policies.  However, complexity of the model’s solution prevented direct evaluation of policy outcomes, except through crude calibration and simulation.  This has resulted in a major simplification of the model where third-country markets are ruled out, thereby allowing closed form solution of the model, and derivation of clean comparative static results.

Revised results of the project have been written up as a working paper, and presented at meetings of the IATRC.  The next step of the project is to extend analysis of the model in its current form, with a key focus on evaluating passthrough and pass-back of carbon policies/CBAMs, as well as calibrating the model and using it for counterfactual policy simulation, with a view to evaluating their impact on nitrogen fertilizer prices.