The Brewer’s COVID Hangover: A Swig of the Pandemic Poison

Beer is considered a “vice” by governmental bodies at all levels. Yet this vice acts like a “normal good” in the face of economic downturn. During the economic turbulence of the COVID pandemic, the large mass-produced domestic beer market got off reasonably unscathed, though not untouched by the market forced which they found themselves subject to. According to the Beer Institute the industry lost 568,040 jobs, close to 22 billion dollars in wages, and close to 20 billion dollars in lost sales revenue. These losses were felt most profoundly by independent micro-breweries. The beer industry finds itself in a place Continue reading The Brewer’s COVID Hangover: A Swig of the Pandemic Poison

The Economic Case for Tech in Agriculture

The modern food system ensures provision of an enormous quantity and variety of safe, fresh foods to billions of people on a global scale. However, our current industrialized food system has in part arisen from and remains fundamentally dependent upon systemic global inequality. It will be impossible to increase agricultural production by the required 70% by 2050 if we do not make any effort to correct the expanding wealth divide between the global rich and the global poor. I believe this wealth gap can be bridged through the sharing of agricultural research. Any loss in economic growth Western countries suffer Continue reading The Economic Case for Tech in Agriculture