Transforming the future of agricultural markets: Prof. Lauren Falcao Bergquist on using technology to combat food insecurity in East Africa

Voices in Development: A Podcast from Yale's Economic Growth Center

The global food system has been knocked off its axis by conflict, Covid-19, and climate change. Food prices have soared to record heights around the world, and lower-income countries face food shortages.

As an economist with a focus on agricultural market research, Lauren Falcao Bergquist, Assistant Professor of Economics and Global Affairs and EGC affiliate, is motivated by her passion for improving the quality of life in the communities where she conducts her research. In this episode of Voices in Development, Bergquist emphasizes the criticality of research on both food supply and distribution, describing her work as centering around "how to get food from areas of surplus to areas of deficit, from times of plenty to times of need."

Bergquist's interest in development economics was inspired by a summer she spent living in a rural village in Tanzania as a Stanford undergrad. She obtained her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and has since conducted extensive research on trade, firm behavior and East African agricultural markets. As well as being an Affiliate at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Bergquist's work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the American Economic Review, she is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and the Lead Academic for Rwanda at the International Growth Centre (IGC).