COVID-19 is expected to reduce the U.S. gross domestic product, GDP, by $2.5 trillion and employment by 19 million full-time equivalent jobs over the next year, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife coordinated study.

This spring Texas A&M’s Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Center of Excellence Cross-Border Threat Screening and Supply Chain Defense, or CBTS, teamed up with Arizona State University’s DHS Center of Excellence, the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency, and researchers at the Victoria University in Australia to examine the economic impacts of COVID-19 on U.S. agricultural sectors.

While certain the pandemic would have a significant impact on the U.S. economy, Greg Pompelli, Ph.D., Texas A&M’s CBTS director, said the researchers used this project to gain a clearer picture of the pandemic’s shorter- and longer-term impacts on the U.S. food and agriculture sectors in comparison to other critical sectors.