USDA Chief Economist Dr. Robert Johansson will retire at the end of January and will be replaced by Dr. Seth Meyer, currently the Associate Director for the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri.
Johansson leaves USDA for the American Sugar Alliance where he will serve as Associate Director of Economics and Policy Analysis. He was first named Chief Economist at USDA in 2015 and has served in a key role as the agency navigated large farmer support programs such as the Market Facilitation Program and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
“There is no doubt that I as well as the whole USDA family will miss Rob’s experience, preparedness, and direct economic analyses,” said USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in a statement. “During his tenure as Chief Economist, Rob has been an upstanding public servant. Rob helped set up and serve as Acting Deputy Undersecretary for the Farm Production and Conservation mission area, early in this Administration. Rob’s leadership and economic support over the past two years with trade disruptions and COVID-19 relief has helped us make evidenced-based decisions when designing programs to assist American farmers and ranchers during their time of need. We are excited to bring back Dr. Seth Meyer and know that he will do a tremendous job serving the people of American agriculture.”
Meyer was previously head of the World Agricultural Outlook Board which publishes the closely watched World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE.) He left the World Board to join FAPRI in 2019.
Meyer was a guest on the AgriTalk Radio Show on Monday before the announcement of his appointment at USDA was announced. He said a key to the farm economy will be watching the impact on farm income as ad-hoc assistance programs expire in 2021.
“We could have a really strange situation where we have sharply higher cash receipts for crops and sharply higher cash receipts for livestock, and yet sharply lower farm income,” Meyer said. “We’re talking about something where direct government payments are going from around $46 billion in 2020 down to something that’s about $10 billion-ish in 2021. And cash receipts increases aren’t going to offset that. So again, we’re talking about something where you could have a sharp decline in farm income at the same time receipts for crops and livestock look much better.”
