Biography
Dr. Goldsmith brings new ideas about markets, commercial practices, and management to help small- and medium-scale farmers escape the trap of persistent poverty while helping small agribusinesses establish a vibrant private sector. He leads USAID’s Feed the Future Lab for Soybean Value Chain Research bringing 50 researchers across 15 countries together to develop soybean as a technology to reduce poverty and malnutrition in the poorest countries of the world. He is using his soybean research and teaching experience over the past 15 years in Brazil and Argentina to make a difference in Africa and other developing countries.
Dr. Goldsmith's research interest is agro-industrial marketing. Specific topics include: adaptation processes and strategy, biotechnology, food safety, the Brazilian and Argentinean agribusiness complex, and large-scale livestock and grain firms.
Current Research Projects
- The Economnics of soybean as a development crop
- The Economics of Safrinha Production and Post-Harvest Loss in Brazil
- The Impact of Livestock on Poverty Reduction: Zambia
- Agglomeration Theory and Soybean Industrial Clusters
- Measuring Value Creation Along the Food and Agribusiness Value Chain
Education
- B.A. (Political Science), Kenyon College, 1981
- B.S. (Dairy Science), The Ohio State University, 1983
- M.B.A. (Finance), Xavier University, 1990
- M.A. (Economics), The Ohio State University, 1993
- Ph.D. (Agricultural Economics), The Ohio State University, 1995
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Executive Director, Innovation to Impact (i2i), Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Professor, Center for African Studies
Recent Publications
Awuni, G. A., Reynolds, D. B., Dodds, D., Denwar, N. N., Abdulai, A. L., Asungre, P. A., Yahaya, I., & Goldsmith, P. D. (2023). Lime, inoculum, and phosphorous input supplementation under rain-fed soybean in Ghana's northern savannas. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 7, Article 992644. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.992644
Martey, E., Maxwell Etwire, P., Mohammed Suraj, M., & Goldsmith, P. (2023). PICS or poly sack: Traders’ willingness to invest in storage protection technologies. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, 14, Article 100691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2023.100691
Lee, N. M., Varshney, L. R., Michelson, H. C., Goldsmith, P., & Davis, A. (2022). Digital trust substitution technologies to support smallholder livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa. Global Food Security, 32, Article 100604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100604
Martey, E., Goldsmith, P., & Etwire, P. M. (2022). Farmers’ response to COVID-19 disruptions: The case of cropland allocation decision. Sustainable Futures, 4, Article 100088. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sftr.2022.100088
Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Zhou, Q. M., Clark, K., Asigbee, M. A. K., Tamimie, C., & Goldsmith, P. (2022). Low-cost soybean input bundles impact women farmers’ subsistence livelihood traps: evidence from Ghana. Food Security, 14(4), 1045-1062. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01263-2