The U.S. food security data to be cancelled by Trump's USDA has been of huge value but is often misunderstood -- and the WSJ piece breaking the news is exceptionally clear about what's at stake

Great piece from @henrymance.ft.com on a surprising way in which people have turned away from idealism: fewer online searches for "vegan". Data in the next post... 1/2

Big new paper shows limits to the common belief that healthy & sustainable foods are more expensive than other options. Details: linkedin.com/posts/wamast... Article: doi.org/10.1016/j.aj... Preprint: sites.tufts.edu/foodpricesfo... From @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social, for #foodsky #econsky #foodecon

It looks like healthy adults under 65 in the U.S. might be barred from getting the updated Covid vaccine for this fall. Here's the latest from my niece Nina Masters' Know Your Vax substack, in response to the story below from Caitlin Rivers @cmyeaton.bsky.social

Marion Nestle just posted a useful roundup of links about the leaked draft MAHA report here: www.foodpolitics.com/2025/08/http... So far MAHA is playing out somewhat like Italy's right-wing gastronationalism, which distracts food activists with symbolic stuff so as to give industry gets a free hand.

Sailing on Boston Harbor on a breezy summer afternoon with @willmasters.bsky.social, practicing dropping and raising the anchor, and, for conversation, in our imagination, solving global food systems challenges.

As ABC News @max-zahn.bsky.social reports, producer prices for vegetables jumped nearly 40% in one month. Tariffs? Supply hiccups due to immigration crackdown on farm laborers? Weather? Or random noise? Let's monitor vegetable prices in the next two months to see. abcnews.go.com/Business/tar...

Remember all of the “food prices are too high” social media posts from 2024? Grocery price inflation is higher now than it was then

Wholesale prices came in hot in today’s PPI report, but veggies stole the show 🥦📈 Vegetable prices at the wholesale level surged nearly 39% in July. @willmasters.bsky.social & I unpack what’s behind this spike in today's @marketplace.org 🎙️ www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

For university courses about #FoodEconomics, a full set of class slides, weekly exercises, & exams is now available for use with the free online textbook from @afinaret.bsky.social and me. Audience is advanced undergrads and first-year grad students using graphical diagrams, examples and global data

Today's U.S. CPI shows grocery price inflation rising and above 2% year-on-year since March 2025, after the period of low grocery price rises in 2023-24. This FRED chart shows rise in grocery inflation (green) vs restaurant meals (red) and the overall CPI (blue): fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1LgBF

This year's #AAEA2025 coincides with launch of the UN system's #SOFI2025 report on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Beyond diet costs and affordability, this year's report includes new work from @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social and @fao.org on relative cost of different foods:

Yesterday's launch of #SOFI2025 marks the 4th annual update of global diet cost and affordability data published jointly by FAO and the World Bank, used by UN agencies and national governments as a clear and actionable new metric of global food security. Direct link to the report is here:

Big thanks to #ABCDE2025 for an amazing 4 days blending new research with big-picture debate on global development in this era of political change. Here's their video of my 15-min summary of #FoodPricesForNutrition, on whether & how agriculture can meet health needs: www.youtube.com/live/AEV4YE1...

Will Masters of Tufts University shows how a well-crafted indicator (in this case, the lowest cost of a healthy diet) can actively inform civil society discussion. For more, read his paper www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ABCDE2025

Great storytelling about agricultural innovation from @kimseverson.bsky.social. The context is a taxpayer-funded public institution doing modern genetics that helps millions of people, but the story is framed as a branded treat from a cute couple at the bucolic-sounding Wild Peanut Lab. Genius!

Many moons ago, @kevinh-phd.bsky.social and I talked about a book we wished existed. No fads, no weight loss hacks, no fear-mongering -- just the science of how food works in your body. Thrilled to share that we wrote it! Out September 23, pre-oder here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671334...

‪Learning to sail small open boats for ocean voyaging, propelled by an upbeat vision of prosperity under conditions of sharp decarbonization, here is a video from Boston Harbor yesterday with friends. Film by @willmasters.bsky.social. #ClimateAction youtu.be/MtBm289wmtU?...

New paper links emotions in artwork to socioeconomic conditions over >500 years. One finding: in W. Europe, paintings got cheerier in the decades after more favorable climatic conditions. Great big-picture stuff from @heblich.bsky.social, w/ C. Gorin & Y. Zylberberg: www.nber.org/papers/w33976

Brief review article out today in Food Policy traces the rapid adoption of least-cost diets for monitoring food access. Paper: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lND015oGp... Project: sites.tufts.edu/foodpricesfo... Something new, from @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social + many others as shown by google ngram data:

Thank you to @lacastanon.bsky.social for wonderful piece explaining the work of #FoodPricesForNutrition. It's a hot summer of new stuff from @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social, helping farmers and food suppliers meet health needs in the U.S. and worldwide.

A blowout vote to tighten the Jones Act, requiring ALL ocean cargo to use US flag vessels... if it's "procured, furnished, or financed" by the Dept of Transportation. The DOT doesn't do that so maybe the bill is just theater--but it's ugly. Thumbs up @repauchincloss.bsky.social for a principled no

Supermarket chains have long used land restrictions to block the entry of other grocery stores, forcing consumers to pay more and travel further. This kind of food desertification was found by law student Karissa Kang (thecounter.org/supermarket-...), now @clairek.bsky.social shows how it might end

Another way they're raising food prices: on Friday June 13th, EPA required use of even more soybeans in diesel fuel. Bulk edible oil prices jumped 9% on the news. Burning crops as fuel is bad for all except growers & processors, who cheered. h/t Aaron Smith agdatanews.substack.com/p/a-big-win-...

Whoa, @elizkolbert.bsky.social did a deep dive into WE ARE EATING THE EARTH in @newyorker.com! I'm grateful that she called me an "engaging storyteller" but mostly I'm grateful that she really grappled with this stuff. I want people to grapple. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Tufts University is thrilled to host the North East Development Consortium (NEUDC) Conference on November 8-9, 2025! 📝 Call for Papers: Submissions start June 16, and end August 17. Submit your papers here: editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conf... More details to come! #NEUDC #NEUDC2025

A new World Bank blog post explains how the #HealthyDietBasket allows us to track #FoodPricesForNutrition around the world: blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/... We'll have more on this at the #ABCDE conference on July 25th, in the @cgdev.org session on ag & food: www.worldbank.org/en/events/20...

1/ 🚀Big Update❗❗ Last year we published @NatCities, a systematic analysis of how countries are organized around multiple urban centres. That geospatial dataset is very complex. So we just launched the City-Region Explorer🔎... an easy to use platform for analysis. 🧵 #EconSky #Geography #GISChat

If you #TeachEcon and cover agriculture & nutrition, on Monday June 16th we'll have a big online ANH Learning Lab online with @afinaret.bsky.social about #FoodEconomics. Textbook etc. is here: sites.tufts.edu/foodeconomics, and link below to free registration at @anhacademy.bsky.social:

Great story by @peterslevin.bsky.social tracing how agricultural research in Africa helps U.S. farmers. Starts with aphid-resistant sorghum in Kansas, then other reasons we created these programs in the first place; features Tim Dalton (my first PhD student!), Dave Tschirley & other #FoodEcon folks

A fulfilling escape: just finished reading So Very Small, on the slow then sudden rise of germ theory, antibiotics & vaccination. The deadly dance between people and bugs is riveting when told by @tomlevenson.bsky.social, and touches us all: My dad was saved by early sulfa drugs in Boston c. 1938

Want a cheap & sustainable healthy diet? New preprint confirms that less expensive options generally emit less GHGs. Main exception is animal source foods. The least emitting healthy diets cost ~$7/day and emit 0.7 kg CO2e, while actual choices cost ~$10 and emit 2.4 kg. arxiv.org/abs/2505.24457

Details for this year's #ABCDE are now posted -- looking forward to new ideas from this big (four days!) program full of #EconSky folks including @rglenner.bsky.social , @markusgold.bsky.social, @eeshani.bsky.social etc. from @cgdev.org, @dannyquah.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social & many others

Leaving today for #Nutrition2025, a packed schedule of presentations by my esteemed colleagues... including the inaugural "Excellence in Nutrition" Fellows of the ASN. It's an honor to be in this amazing group -- I will be proud to flash that extra qualification in the health sciences as PhD, FASN!

A new paper painstakingly details how national food supplies align with nutritional needs around the world, focusing on which nutrients in what foods have and can be industrially fortified. Fortification works only in some settings, but does so at an astonishingly low cost. ssrn.com/abstract=526...

This new paper validates the #HealthyDietBasket used to track food access globally, benchmarked to national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) and EAT-Lancet targets for nutrition & sustainability. A big step in work on #FoodPricesForNutrition from @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social #AgSky #FoodSky

New WTO-IMF tracker shows latest changes in effective tariffs for US, China & Canada. For example, I just found that the US rate on coffee & tea is now 12% (because most is at the 10% floor), but cocoa & chocolate is 17% (due to high tax on imports via Canada, Mexico & the EU). #EconSky #TeachEcon

Stunning data, from @gelliottmorris.com

✍ Sign up for #ANH2025 Learning Labs—online or in Dar es Salaam! 🇹🇿 Explore 20+ workshops on topics like cost of a healthy diet, trade & nutrition, gender & food systems. 🍎 🔗 bit.ly/4k04pjg Attending in person? ✈️ Check your email for the LL sign-up link! 📩 🗓️See full programme: bit.ly/4mnQF3n

Brian Potter's roundup of findings from Construction Physics is full of surprises, showing how "things that seem recent often go back decades... what seems inevitable is often the result of chance... intuitive explanations are often wrong..." His discoveries are wild, and clearly explained:

It's not too late to register for (free) online ANH Learning Labs from @anhacademy.bsky.social, June 16-18. Each is a 2hr interactive session on topics like #FoodEconomics, #CostOfHealthyDiets and others, the week before in-person meetings in Tanzania. Details: www.anh-academy.org/form/anh2025...

My sister-in-law, on building bridges to overcome polarization: "Conversation is not enough -- what is effective is doing things together, with diverse people, when you have a shared purpose."

We’re 1 month away from #ANH2025! 🌍 Register to attend online now to hear from global experts in food systems, nutrition, health & equity! 🌱 🗓️ June 16–26 💻 Hybrid event 🔎 Explore the programme & register now: 🖇️ bit.ly/4ikxqWe #Agriculture #Nutrition #Health #FoodSystems

Meanwhile, people keep discovering unexpected new things. Hiawatha Bray tells the story of silk's weird superpowers emerging from the biomedical engineering labs of David Kaplan and Fio Omenetto at Tufts University:

Interestsed in resources to help you teach (or learn!) #FoodEconomics? Our new Open Access textbook is here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007... With the #AEPP explainer paper just published yesterday for a quick glance at the whole thing: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Simon Schama on the U.S.'s love-hate relationship with knowledge, including why the Constitution of Massachusetts (the world's oldest, from 1780) enshrined support for Harvard University -- with wild swings in funding for and popularity of higher ed throughout history. Sharp truths for #AcademicSky

New article with @afinaret.bsky.social explains our #FoodEconomics book, using analytical diagrams and data visualizations to offer accessible insights for general readers, #TeachEcon instructors & students. In AEPP (gated): doi.org/10.1002/aepp... Preprint & resources: sites.tufts.edu/foodeconomics

New paper on "Measuring Food Access as Affordability of Least-Cost Healthy Diets" tells how this new diagnostic indicator of food security was launched in 2020, now used by FAO & World Bank + others. Deep dive into the data's context, use and limitations: doi.org/10.1111/agec... #TeachEcon #EconSky

So excited to see our article in @natcomms.nature.com, led by Valentin Seidler & w/ Edson Utazi, @sluckene.bsky.social , Gregor Zens, Maksym Bodarenko, Abigail Smith (@alleghenycollege.bsky.social alum!), Sarah Bradley, Andy Tatem, and @patrickwebb.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨Development Economists!🚨Do you use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS Program) data, which had been supported by USAID? IPUMS ( @ipums.bsky.social ) and the UN Statistics Division have a survey for you. I just filled it out. You can too. #econsky