The agricultural industry has proven more resilient to pandemic disruptions than many had hoped, according to the latest market research by Oklahoma State University Extension experts.
“The Oklahoma region is doing better than expected,” said Courtney Bir, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and OSU Extension specialist. “People are still concerned about travel, but they’re not so concerned about finding meat, milk, eggs and other food items at their local grocery stores. So even though we had a lot of barren shelves early in the pandemic, we seem to have bounced back, and that concern is now really low among COVID-related problems.”
In addition to a high level of consumer confidence in commercial supply chains, the recent study, Vaccine Intention for Oklahoma and Surrounding States, found a higher percentage of respondents from the Oklahoma region had received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine when compared with the rest of the U.S.
However, Bir added, “there is still a large percentage of people who are unwilling to get the vaccine at all. If you add that figure to the number of children who have not been cleared to get those shots yet, we’re nowhere close to herd immunity and have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Because the COVID-19 virus does not recognize geographical borders, the study took a regional approach that included Oklahoma and surrounding states in its final analysis. That cluster includes Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.
Of the lifestyle areas examined, three were of the lowest impact for Oklahoma region respondents: ability to find meat, milk and perishable grocery items; lack of childcare impacting parents’ ability to work; and death of family members from COVID-19.
