Farmers Markets and Food-Borne Illness

Marc F. Bellemare, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, will present on September 19th in Room 105 of the Agricultural Administration Building (2120 Fyffe Road) as part of the AEDE Applied Economics Seminar Series. His presentation will focus on his recent research with Robert P. King, also from the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota: "Farmers Markets and Food-Borne Illness." 

Abstract: We study the relationship between farmers markets and food-borne illness. Using state-level data for the period 2004-2011, we find a positive relationship between the number of farmers markets per capita and outbreaks of food-borne illness per capita when including state fixed effects, year fixed effects, and state-specific trends. Specifically, our estimates indicate that a 1% increase in the number of farmers markets per one million individuals in the average state-year lead to a 0.6% increase in the total number of outbreaks of food-borne illness. This relationship masks a considerable amount of heterogeneity, however, as we find a positive relationship between farmers markets and outbreaks of norovirus or campylobacter but a negative relationship between farmers markets and outbreaks of E. coli or staph. Our results are robust to different estimators and to semiparametric specifications, and placebo tests indicate that our results are unlikely to be spurious.

The event is open to the Ohio State community and RSVPs are not required.