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Indian wheat yields gain but reaching limit

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David Lobell
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Wheat is a staple crop throughout much of India, but in many areas it is commonly sown past the optimum yield window. A study led by FSE associate director David Lobell uses satellite measurements to estimate a decade’s worth of sow dates in wheat-growing areas of India.

The study finds, among other developments, that wheat was sown one week earlier by 2010 than it was at the beginning of the decade, a change that explains 5% in country-wide yield gains. It also predicts that yield benefits from sow date shifts will likely diminish in the next decade.

"There's an important, one time boost farmers have gotten recently from moving into the optimum sowing window, but the data suggest this effect will run out of steam in the coming years," says Lobell.

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International climate action needed now, says top UN official

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Without coordinated global action on climate change, it will be increasingly hard to reduce poverty in the world's poorest countries, said UN Development Program Administrator Helen Clark. Clark's visit to campus comes a few weeks before global climate negotiations are set to begin in Doha, Qatar. 

She highlighted ways in which climate change will, and is already, impacting food security in the world's most vulnerable regions: 

  • The IPCC’s climate projections indicate that an increasingly dry and hot climate will make sub-Saharan Africa less suitable for agriculture, reducing the length of growing seasons, lowering yields, and shrinking revenue. Some African countries could see agricultural yields decrease by 50 percent by 2050.
  • Researchers studying the Indian Ocean have concluded that human-caused warming there will make rainfall in the Horn of Africa even more erratic and severe drought more frequent.
  • The cumulative impact of extreme weather, rising temperatures and water stress on staple crops is making global food prices more volatile. Food price spikes disproportionately impact the world’s poor who spend up to 75 percent of their income on food--sparking riots and instability.
  • The World Food Programme estimates that climate change will put 20 percent more people at risk of hunger by mid-century.
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Amy J. Pickering

Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
473 Via Ortega
Stanford, CA 94305-4020

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Amy Pickering is a research associate and lecturer at Stanford University. She received a BS in biological engineering at Cornell University, a MS in environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in interdisciplinary environment and resources at Stanford University. Her current research interests include understanding the relationship between water access, food security, sanitation and infectious disease in rural communities in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Mali.

Satellite detection of earlier wheat sowing in India and implications for yield trends

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Wheat is a staple crop throughout much of India, but in many areas it is commonly sown past the optimum window for yields. Recent technologies, such as adoption of no-till practices or earlier maturing cotton and rice varieties, have enabled some farmers to sow wheat earlier, but repeatable and publicly available measurements of sow date trends are lacking. Here we utilize satellite measurements since 2000 to estimate sow dates over a decade throughout wheat growing areas in India. Comparisons with ground-based sow dates in Punjab confirmed the reliability of satellite estimates, and data from two independent satellite sensors were used as a robustness check. We find statistically significant (p < 0.05) shifts toward earlier sowing of wheat throughout much of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, with insignificant changes in Punjab. A production-weighted average of the entire region indicates that, on average, wheat was sown 1 week earlier by 2010 than it was at the beginning of the decade. Using previously published experimental estimates of yield gains from earlier sowing, we estimate that an overall yield gain of at least 5% averaged across India can be explained by the sow date trend. Given that national yield changes since 2000 have been less than 5%, our results indicate that the sow date shift has been a major factor in yield changes over the past decade, and that the net yield effect of all factors other than sow date has been close to zero, perhaps even negative. The results also indicate that sow dates in much of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh are nearing or already at the optimum window for yields, so that yield benefits from sow date shifts will likely diminish in the next decade.

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Adam Sibley
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Five foreign policy questions for Obama and Romney

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President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

 

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.

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President Obama and Mitt Romney speak during the second presidential debate on Oct. 16, 2012. Their third and final debate will focus on foreign policy.
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China and Africa: Are there Lessons for Development?

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The lost decades for China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s look remarkably like the lost decades of Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Poor land rights, weak incentives, incomplete markets and inappropriate investment portfolios. However, China burst out of its stagnation in the 1980s and has enjoyed three decades of remarkable growth. In this talk Rozelle examines the record of the development of China’s food economy and identifies the policies that helped generate the growth and transformation of agriculture. Incentives, markets and strategic investments by the state were key. Equally important, however, is what the state did not do. Policies that worked and those that failed (or those that were ignored) are addressed. Most importantly, Rozelle tries to take an objective, nuanced look at the lessons that might be learned and those that are not relevant for Africa. Many parts of Africa have experienced positive growth during the past decade. Rozelle examines if there are any lessons that might be helpful in turning ten positive years into several more decades of transformation.

Scott Rozelle (main speaker). Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Alain de Janvry (commentator). Alain de Janvry is an economist working on international economic development, with expertise principally in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East, and the Indian subcontinent. Fields of work include poverty analysis, rural development, quantitative analysis of development policies, impact analysis of social programs, technological innovations in agriculture, and the management of common property resources. He has worked with many international development agencies, including FAO, IFAD, the World Bank, UNDP, ILO, the CGIAR, and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller and Kellogg. His main objective in teaching, research, and work with development agencies is the promotion of human welfare, including understanding the determinants of poverty and analyzing successful approach to improve well-being and promote sustainability in resource use.

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Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
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Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

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Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series

Teaming Up to Learn How to Overcome Anemia: Nutritional Education and Mobile Messaging Design for Household Engagement

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This study seeks to understand whether developing an innovative curriculum kit that will supplement health instruction for 3rd to 6th grade students and teachers in underdeveloped areas of rural China can also be delivered to parents in a set of pilot schools will: improve nutrition and the knowledge of teacher, students and parents about nutrition; reduce the level of anemia; and increase educational performance. The project will also study how to best deliver the message and keep parents accessing the information so they can act on it. The work will entail developing and examining the effectiveness (on the same outcome variables we investigate for the supplemental health class) of ways to use new technologies: mobile phones and postal mailings (for those without mobile phones) to follow up with parents and try to reinforce the message so they put it into action.

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Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
scott_rozelle_new_headshot.jpeg PhD

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

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Scott Rozelle Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow, FSI; Affiliated Faculty, CDDRL; and Co-director, REAP Speaker
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Katrina ole-MoiYoi

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Katrina grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and spent much of her youth camping on the East African savannah and exploring coral reefs in the Indian Ocean. She moved to the US at the age of eighteen, and holds a B.A. from Brown University in International Relations, an M.A. from the University of Washington in Marine Affairs, and a PhD in Environment and Resources from the Stanford Emmett Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources.

Her professional experience includes several years in international development consulting in Washington DC, where she provided programmatic and technical support to USAID-funded fisheries and water management programs in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Working with the UN Food & Agriculture Organization's Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem Program, she reviewed the status of marine protected areas in eight South Asian countries (Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia) and presented recommendations to senior government officials from each country on ways to improve marine resource management across borders. In the field of agriculture, she worked with a private drip irrigation and greenhouse company in Israel, and also co-founded and ran a farm with 200+ customers on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Most recently, she traveled to Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines to provide technical advice on the design of a marine fisheries traceability program meant to improve food security and the health of marine ecosystems. She is currently the Director of Sustainability for Victory Farms.

Aquaculture in China and its Role in Global Markets and Resources

Seafood plays a critical role in global food security and protein intake. The global supply of seafood increasingly comes from aquaculture - the farming of fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants. China is the dominant leader in this field, supplying about two-thirds of global aquaculture production. China also consumes an estimated one-third of global aquaculture output, a figure that is expected to increase as the country proceeds along its developmental trajectory.

FSE visiting scholar on extreme weather, economics and interdisciplinary learning

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The United States continues to endure the worst drought to hit the country in over 50 years. Although conditions have improved, 53 percent of the US is still experiencing moderate or worse levels of drought. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) projected last week that the drought will reduce the nation’s corn yield by 13 percent and soybean yield by 12 percent. As the world’s largest exporter of corn, soybean and wheat, this major disruption in U.S. supply is already having an impact on global food prices.

Is this summer a glimpse of what our future could look like under a changing climate, and what does that mean for the world’s poor who are disproportionately impacted by volatile food prices? What policy options are available to help avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis? I sat down with FSE visiting scholar Thomas Hertel, an agricultural economist from Purdue University, to discuss these questions and related research as he wraps up his sabbatical year here at Stanford.

 

DEAN: The current drought has already had a dramatic impact on US corn prices, exceeding record highs of $8 a bushel. While American consumers are unlikely to feel the impacts until next year, the spike in corn prices has sparked debate over whether to drop or temporarily suspend US ethanol mandates to free up supply and ease the pressure on world food prices. In April, you published a paper in Nature Climate Change with Stanford environmental scientist Noah Diffenbaugh that looked at this very scenario.

How are current biofuel policies affecting the market’s ability to respond to extreme weather events like the current drought?

HERTEL: The remarkable thing about that paper is how timely it was. We predicted a volatile interplay between an extremely hot summer and the Renewable Fuel Standard for corn ethanol, and that is what we are now seeing, with the value of the mandates’ Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) accruing greater value as the drought deepens. There are increasing calls for a waiver of the mandated 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol needed to meet this year’s federal renewable-fuel standards. This new source of demand (about 40 percent of production last year) has absorbed virtually all of the increased output the US has generated over the past eight years. By limiting the ability of commodity markets to adjust to yield fluctuations, biofuel mandates work in exactly the wrong direction. These price spikes are likely to be even larger in the future if these policies are not altered.

 

DEAN: In that same paper you warn that extreme weather events, like the current drought, are likely to become more common and potentially even more intense under a changing climate. To better understand the impacts of climate change on global agricultural production, trade, prices and poverty you have developed a global trade analysis model (GTAP), now used by over 10,000 members. Some of those results were published in a 2010 paper with FSE fellow David Lobell and FSE affiliated researcher Marshall Burke.

What have been some of the most interesting findings to come out of that model?

HERTEL: Prior to the publication of our 2010 paper in Global Environmental Change, most studies of climate change and poverty focused on the likely impact on prices and low income food consumers. Our paper was one of the first to examine the impact on wages and farm incomes. We found that low income farm households in regions of the world that are relatively less hard hit by climate change may actually benefit from the ensuing rise in world prices. Of course, low income consumers worldwide, as well as farmers in the regions hardest hit by climate change, such as Southern Africa and South Asia, will be hurt.

 

DEAN: Poor households in developing countries spend a disproportionately large amount of their disposable income on food. Even small price spikes can have a large impact.

What policies are needed to help protect the world’s poorest from price volatility?

HERTEL: This is an important question. Being a trade economist, I think immediately of trade policies and their role in improving or worsening the situation. From a global perspective, the best thing that can be done is for all regions of the world to share in the needed adjustments to events like the US drought of 2012. If all countries were to adjust their corn use by just a modest  amount, the shortfall could be accommodated more easily. However, the evidence from the 2007-2008 commodity crisis suggests that many countries – most notably India and China – responded to the crisis by adjusting border policies so as to shield domestic consumers from the price rise, thereby failing to share in the adjustment. This, in turn, made the world price rise larger and worsened the situation for low income households in other developing countries.

 

DEAN: In addition to focusing on climate change impacts on agriculture and poverty, you have a long-standing interest in agricultural impacts on the environment, and the role economics can play in mitigating agriculture’s destructive planetary impacts. The latter is particularly important given that agricultural production accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater consumption, 38 percent of total land use, and 14 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

How are economic forces impacting the kind of farming we see today?

HERTEL: One of agriculture’s most important impacts on the environment has been its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Farming accounts for a disproportionate share of GHGs, including nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer applications, methane emissions from livestock and paddy rice, as well as indirect emissions from the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural uses. There is little doubt that the globalization of agriculture has contributed to an acceleration of land conversion in some regions which had previously been insulated from world markets. New agricultural technologies offer great hope for moderating such GHG emissions – both by reducing the emissions intensity of agricultural production and by reducing the total amount of land required to feed the world. And there is evidence that more rigorous enforcement of restrictions on land conversion in places like the Amazon can have a tangible impact on global emissions. So the answer lies in a combination of investments, regulations and enforcement. We have explored the potential for agriculture and land-based mitigation policies to contribute to reduced GHG emissions – as well as the implications for food security – in a joint project with the UN-Food and Agriculture Organization. These findings are forthcoming in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

DEAN: While at Stanford, you have had the opportunity to work closely with climate and earth system scientists to conduct research on the energy-water-land-agriculture-climate nexus under the umbrella of John Weyant’s Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) project and with former Purdue colleague, Noah Diffenbaugh.

How did you enjoy working in such an interdisciplinary environment?

HERTEL: This was the first deeply interdisciplinary experience of my career and it was both challenging and rewarding. Noah is the person who first stimulated my research interest in climate change five years ago. The idea that extreme events could have an important impact on agriculture, food prices and poverty is something that we have been exploring intensively since that time. However, it was only in the context of this sabbatical—with the help of Martin Scherer and Monika Verma—that we were able to really get our teeth into the issue, resulting in the April paper.

 

DEAN: You also taught an interdisciplinary graduate seminar with FSE fellow David Lobell on global agricultural land use change in 2050.

What sort of lessons did you learn from teaching an interdisciplinary seminar?

HERTEL: I really enjoyed the opportunity and the challenge of teaching an interdisciplinary course. I was fortunate to work closely with David Lobell in designing this course, as the structure was different from the typical economics course which I have taught in the past. Teaching the course also changed my perspective on which research questions are most important. Sometimes the points that most intrigue economists are of little broader relevance, while some of those issues which seem obvious to economists are deserving of much greater attention, more thorough investigation and better communication to the broader scientific community. I plan to offer this course when I return to Purdue, and I am also planning to write a textbook based on this course.

 

DEAN: You have also been working on the launch of an open source data program called GEOSHARE (Geospatial, Open-Source Hosting of Agriculture, Resources and Environmental Data).

What does GEOSHARE do and why is it needed?

Hertel: Feeding 9 billion people in 2050 in the face of a changing climate, while preserving the environment and eliminating extreme poverty, is one of the most important challenges facing us today. Yet the data currently available to understand how global and local phenomena affect the agriculture-environment-poverty nexus are insufficient to advance needed discovery and enable effective decision making. In order to address this limitation, we have initiated GEOSHARE. During my time at Stanford I was able to finalize funding for a two-year pilot effort aimed at providing proof of concept. It will prototype this freely available, global, spatially explicit database which will be accompanied by analysis tools and training programs for new scientists, decision makers, and development practitioners.

 

What will you take away with you from your time spent here on the Farm?

HERTEL: I greatly enjoyed my colleagues and conducting research, auditing courses (including a course in Geographical Information Science and David Lobell’s course in Climate and Agriculture) and teaching. But I also had great fun cycling and hiking in the hills around Palo Alto, windsurfing, singing in a local choir, and partaking of all that San Francisco has to offer. This is a lovely place to spend a sabbatical leave!

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