Alfons Weersink - Edit 1

- My name is Alfons Weersink and I'm a professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Guelph. My research looks at the effect of new technology and government policy on what farmers do and the effect of those decisions on the environment and markets. The research that I'm doing is very topical. The new technology for example right now tends to be digital technology precision agriculture and the government policy is focusing initially on revenue insurance, government support for farmers and now increasingly it's green policy, the impacts of efforts to clean up the phosphates from the Grant lakes for example. My research looks at the effect of new technology and government policy on what farmers do and the impact of those decisions on the environment and markets. So agriculture is at the nexus of a lot of major social issues, and it could be poverty, it could be health issues, it could be the environment and in each of those agriculture plays a major role. So for example, environment, that's... the major land, those decisions are made by farmers in terms of health issues, the food that we eat is produced by farmers. So what motivates my research? I'm a farm boy and its a natural extension of what I grew up being interested in and just really fortunate to be in this position.