Areas of Expertise:

Additional Areas of Expertise:

Food, agricultural commodities, animal health, price analysis. strategic planning

Dr. Thomas Elam earned Master’s and PhD degrees in Agricultural Economics at the University of Tennessee. He is also a graduate of the American Marketing Association Executive Strategic Planning course. Dr. Elam is also a member of Sigma Xi, a scientific research society, and Gamma Sigma Delta, the agriculture honorary research society.

Dr. Elam has been working in the area of grain and livestock economics for over 35 years. His professional career spans service to the University of Illinois, the Economic Research Service of USDA and Elanco Animal Health. In a 24 year career at Elanco Dr. Elam was primarily engaged in global market research and strategic business planning. As a result of that experience he has broad capabilities in the areas of agricultural price outlook, agricultural production, food marketing, and animal health economics.

After retirement from Elanco in 2003 Dr. Elam has continued his career by founding his own company, FarmEcon LLC. At www.FarmEcon.com, you will find details of the wide range projects and publications in which FarmEcon LLC has been engaged in over the last several years.

Dr. Elam is a much sought after speaker and author on a variety of topics related to agricultural economics and outlook and global animal health economics. He has given talks on a wide range of agricultural issues in most of the countries of the world with significant animal production.

FarmEcon LLC has demonstrated capabilities in the areas of general agricultural market analysis and outlook, biofuel economics, broiler and turkey industry economics, competitive intelligence, customer profiling, business interruption assessment and strategic planning.

In November, 2006 Dr. Elam was named as one of the top 20 consultants to the Poultry Industry by Poultry USA magazine. He is a regularly featured speaker at poultry events in the U.S. and around the world.

Tom recently completed three major studies for the U.S. National Chicken Council. The first concerned U.S. chicken demand, the second was on the competitive state of the U.S. broiler market, and the third was a study that commented on GIPSA proposals for major modifications in poultry contracting and marketing practices. Partially as a result of the GIPSA study, USDA substantially modified the final regulations to reduce their regulatory burden. He also authored an ethanol tax credit study for the National Turkey Federation that was instrumental in the termination of that credit at the end of 2011.

Dr. Elam has also authored numerous articles on biofuels policy, and grain, livestock and poultry outlook. Together with Dr. Steve Meyer he recently completed a study of biofuels mandates and ethanol prices on corn prices.

Dr. Elam is also a mission pilot and counterdrug program director for the Indiana Wing of the Civil Air Patrol

He is married, has two wonderful daughters, and four incredible granddaughters.

Recent Comments by Thomas Elam

• "For the energy suppliers low prices are an obvious barrier. We are seeing reduced exploration activity, but no shutdowns of in-place capacity. In the "
  Low Oil Prices: Opportunity or Barrier for U.S. Industry?
• "The "blend wall" concept is an invention of biofuel advocates. It is an attempt to cover up the simple fact that on the scale mandated by the RFS biol"
  Should The Renewable Fuel Standard Change With Fuel Demand?
• "I need to make a correction to my prior post. I copied an Excel formula that referenced the wrong cell for the percent increase in wholesale farm comm"
  Does the Renewable Fuel Standard Raise Food Prices?
• "  Reid Detchon makes the factually unsupported assertion that food p"
  Does the Renewable Fuel Standard Raise Food Prices?