About

Dr. Zhengfei Guan is an Associate Professor in the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. His research interests include production economics, labor economics, and agricultural trade and policy. His current efforts focus on agribusiness coping strategies under changing production, market, and policy environments, with the goal of helping producers address major industry challenges at both farm and market levels. Dr. Guan's work has been presented to high-level government entities such as the White House, U.S. Congress, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. He has testified at USTR and USITC hearings on the trade of seasonal and perishable products. Dr. Guan has received over $3 million in research grants and has collaborated on grants totaling over $30 million. He has been recognized with the Outstanding Extension Program Award by the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and was named a University Term Professor at UF from 2018 to 2021 for his outstanding contributions. He holds a PhD and MS from Wageningen University and a BS from Nanjing University.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Environmental economics
• Medicine
• Ecology
• Economic growth
• Natural resource economics
• Biology
• Marketing
• Economics
• Biotechnology
• Geography

Selected publications

• Sanctuary Cities and the Wages of Native Workers: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• How resistant cultivars reshape disease management: An application to citrus greening disease

  Agricultural Systems · 2026-02-17

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Rising Minimum Wages: Challenges to the U.S. Produce Industry

  Agribusiness · 2025-03-01

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  ABSTRACT The U.S. produce industry has been facing significant challenges due to rising minimum wages. This study proposes a modeling framework to analyze the impacts of rising minimum wages and assess their effects on the U.S. produce sector, focusing on the strawberry industry, which confronts both escalating labor costs and competition from low‐cost imports. A structural model with a nested Synthetic Inverse Demand System (SIDS) is employed to analyze how wage increases affect the industry in both short and long terms. Our findings reveal that rising minimum wages will lead to a substantial increase in both the shipments (by 46%) and prices (by 23%) of strawberries from Mexico, the sole competitor of the US industry. As a result, the Mexican strawberry industry will see a significant revenue boost of $420 million (+ 79%). On the other hand, the U.S. strawberry industry could incur a potential revenue loss of up to $304 million (−17.9%). These results highlight the rough road ahead for the labor‐intensive produce industry as wages rise in the United States.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Resistant Cultivars Reshape Disease Management: An Application to Citrus Greening Disease

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• An Introduction to Economic Analysis of Pest Management: A Case Study of Nematode Management

  EDIS · 2025-02-17

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The economic performance of pest management practices is a critical factor when farmers make adoption decisions. Partial budget analysis is a widely used tool to evaluate the financial effects of different management practices in agricultural production. It provides an economic rationale for selecting the optimal treatment by evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the treatment. This publication explains how to employ partial budget analysis using a real-world example. It provides a step-by-step guide examining the costs and benefits of two different approaches, fumigation and nematicides, to manage nematodes on Florida's tomato farms.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Can Soil-friendly Nematicides Cost-Effectively Replace Soil Fumigation? Evidence from Florida Tomato Production

  HortScience · 2025-10-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Florida leads fresh tomato production in the United States and supplies most domestic tomatoes from October to June. However, tomato growers in Florida face persistent pest pressure, particularly from nematodes, and rely heavily on soil fumigation for control. While effective, traditional fumigation negatively affects soil health. Combined with the phase-out of methyl bromide (MBr), this has increased efforts to search for more soil-friendly alternatives, such as new nonfumigant nematicides. By applying a partial budget analysis that accounted for both revenue and cost changes, this study evaluated whether soil-friendly nematicides can be an economical substitute for fumigation in Florida tomato production. The findings showed that nonfumigant nematicide treatments were less cost-effective than fumigation and cannot replace fumigation under current conditions. Nonetheless, they are more effective for improving net returns in spring than in fall. Without supportive government policies, growers have no financial incentive to adopt these more sustainable practices. These results highlight the need for continued research to develop more cost-effective nonfumigant nematicides and suggest a potential role for supportive policy interventions. It is worth noting that this farm-level financial analysis did not capture the long-term soil health and broader environmental benefits of reducing fumigation, which are worth exploring in future studies.

  PublisherDOI

• Advancing specialty crop management: a review of recent developments in robotics, remote sensing, and machine learning systems

  The International Food and Agribusiness Management Review · 2025-01-14 · 3 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Abstract Specialty crop production is labor-intensive. Rising labor costs and uncertainty regarding labor availability are threatening the financial viability of many agricultural producers in the United States. In response, stakeholders are searching for alternatives to labor-intensive production systems, thus driving technological innovation. This article aims to review current technological developments at the forefront of specialty crop production. We specifically review recent literature in the past decade to highlight trends in technology advancement based on the category and functionality of the technology and discuss the economic impact and limitations of these technologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• From Surplus to Deficit: Decoding the Fundamental Shift in US Agricultural Trade

  Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy · 2025-09-14 · 3 citations

  articleCorresponding

  ABSTRACT The United States has been the world's largest agricultural exporter, consistently recording substantial surpluses in agricultural trade for decades. However, this landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years, with the US incurring a trade deficit ($1 billion) for the first time in 2019 since the USDA trade statistics became available in 1967. This deficit climbed to a staggering $21 billion in 2023 and continues to grow. This study provides an in‐depth analysis of the shifting US trade patterns from 1985 to 2023, focusing on bilateral agricultural trade with major trade partners and key commodity flows. Structural break analysis is employed to identify significant turning points. Breaks are found in trade with China, Canada, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Australia. Trade with China stands out as the most disrupted, with structural breaks closely aligned with the imposition of retaliatory tariffs during the US–China trade war. No structural breakpoints are detected in US–Mexico agricultural trade. The rapid and consistent growth in imports from Mexico in recent years has been a significant force behind the spiking US agricultural trade deficits. The potential driving factors behind the observed trends and identified structural breaks are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Scale up urban agriculture to leverage transformative food systems change, advance social–ecological resilience and improve sustainability

  Nature Food · 2024-01-02 · 48 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The United States Orange Industry: Declining Production and Climbing Imports

  EDIS · 2024-06-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The US orange industry has been grappling with declining production since the early 2000s due to the outbreak of the Huanglongbing disease and various other challenges. To meet the market demand, the United States increasingly relies on imports, notably those from Mexico and Chile. This publication further explores the factors contributing to this trend and discusses potential solutions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Feng Wu

  University of Oxford

  60 shared

• Feng Wu

  46 shared

• Gary E. Vallad

  University of Florida

  14 shared

• Nathan S. Boyd

  University of Florida

  13 shared

• Ariel Soto

  University of Concepción

  12 shared

• Alfons Oude Lansink

  Wageningen University & Research

  11 shared

• Dong Hee Suh

  Korea University

  11 shared

• Kuan‐Ming Huang

  Mississippi State University

  11 shared

Awards & honors

• Outstanding Extension Program Award by the Southern Agricult…
• University Term Professor (2018-2021) by UF