Aaron Smith
Description: Aaron Smith is a professor of agricultural economics at UC Davis. He is also the cluster lead of ethics for the AI institute for Food Systems and co-director of the center for data science and artificial intelligence. His research focuses on econometrics, commodity markets, agriculture and energy. He also runs the substack blog Ag Data News, which gives digestible weekly articles relating to agricultural economics. Today we talk about biofuels, environmental policy, and the future of agricultural technology and AI. Additionally, we seek to understand why eggs prices soared this year and which fast food chicken sandwich is the best. We hope you enjoy.
Websites: UC Davis Profile // Ag Data News
Publications:
Environmental Outcomes of US Renewable Fuel Standard
Are Robots Going to Steal our Jobs?
Resources:
The AI Institute for Food Systems
Courses:
Show Notes:
[01:10] Background story and how he got interested in agricultural economics
[02:20] What is econometrics and why should everybody understand it?
[04:00] How is econometrics used beyond macroeconomics and money?
[05:00] What are common misconceptions of econometrics?
[06:40] How is corn being used as a biofuel?
[09:10] Do these corn biofuel policies work at decreasing our environmental impact?
[13:40] What other policies have been impacted by lobbyists?
[15:20] How do we take a critical eye to these policies that seem to be beneficial but might not be?
[16:50] Where do you see the future of agricultural technology?
[21:30] What does agricultural data look like today?
[25:00] When will the rest of the world get the recent technological advances in agricultural technology?
[26:00] Can farmers benefit from an increased amount of data coming from agriculture?
[28:15] Who do you think will own the data?
[29:40] How might we be able to capture emissions from agriculture?
[33:10] What is more effective, negative incentives or positive incentives?
[34:30] What are some of the economical and environmental differences between animal and plant agriculture?
[35:30] What will be the key drivers in creating sustainable agriculture?
[38:20] How do we implement technologies without hurting small-scale farmers?
[40:40] Have you looked at the economic impact of California’s electric vehicle policy?
[43:15] What would be the economic impact of the USD no longer being the world’s reserve currency, especially in energy markets?
[45:45] What is the best chicken sandwich?
[47:40] Why did egg prices get so high?
[50:30] What is the goal of your substack, Ag Data News?
[52:10] Any advice for students?