Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

2009 Committee Officers: Committee Chair: Dmitry Vedenov, Texas A&M University. Program Chair: Ardian Harri, Mississippi State University. Incoming Program Chair: Marc F. Bellemare, Duke University Administrative Advisor: Reuben Moore, Mississippi State University. Business meeting began at 10:45am on March 21 and adjourned at 11:15pm. The committee expressed appreciation to all presenter and Ardian Harri for putting together an excellent program for the annual meeting. The participants were encouraged to submit papers to AgEcon search. The importance of properly acknowledging SCC-76 in submiteed manuscripts was emphasized. Dmitry Vedenov conveyed an invitation of Calum Turvey, editor of Agricultural Finance Review, to submit the final papers for possible publication in the journal. The dates for the next year's meeting were tentatively set to March 18-20, 2010. The committee voted in favor of keeping Galveston, TX, as the meeting place. However a formal bidding process will be conducted by the incoming committee chair, Ardian Harri, in order to ensure favorable financial terms for the meeting. Marc F. Bellemare, Duke University, was nominated and elected by the committee to be the 2010 Program Chair. The website of SCC-76 was updated to reflect recent committee meetings. The website is now hosted at Texas A&M University and can be accessed at http://www.agriskgroup.org or http://scc76.tamu.edu

The SCC-76 annual meeting on the economics and management of risk in agricultural and natural resources was held at Galveston, TX. The goal of the program was to facilitate discussion of ongoing research activities related to risk in agricultural and natural resources decision-making. The program consisted of 18 presentations covering a variety of topics in crop insurance, theoretical and practical aspects of decision making under uncertainty, market price risks, food safety, and risk management education. Richard Just made a keynote presentation addressing fundamental issues in selecting risky choice models. After each presentation, time was allowed for discussion and feedback from meeting participants. The participants are expected to submit the presentations to AgEcon search. Presentations were as follows: A Brief Overview of Weather Derivatives and the Effects of Potential Trends Upon Temperature Based Derivative Prices, Joseph Atwood, Montana State University The Structural Estimation of Principal-Agent Models by Least Squares: Evidence from Land Rental Markets in Madagascar, Marc F. Bellemare and Zachary S. Brown, Duke University Preferences Versus Perceptions and Alternative Risky Choice Models: What Should a Risk Researcher Do? Richard E. Just and David R. Just, University of Maryland and Cornell University Risk Management  Explaining the Time Series Variation, Shawn Cole and Barrett E. Kirwan, University of Maryland and Harvard Business School An Experimental Investigation of the Kreps-Porteus Model, Keith H. Coble and Jason L. Lusk, Mississippi State University and Oklahoma State University Estimating Heterogeneous Risk Preferences under Price and Production Uncertainty, Zhengfei Guan and Feng Wu, Michigan State University On the (Mis)Use of Wealth as a Proxy for Risk Aversion, Marc F. Bellemare and Zachary S. Brown, Duke University How is Risk Aversion Affected by Food Scares? Estimates Implied from BSE Shocks on Cattle Futures Options, Gabriel J. Power, Michael Thomsen, Andrew McKenzie and Dmitry Vedenov, Texas A&M University and University of Arkansas Household Welfare and Multi-Commodity Price Risk: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia, Marc F. Bellemare, Christopher B. Barrett, Zachary S. Brown and David R. Just, Duke University and Cornell University Excluded Losses and the Demand for Insurance, Jack Meyer and Donald J. Meyer, Michigan State University California Winegrape Growers & Powdery Mildew Risks: Do Disease Forecasts Reduce Pesticide Use by Improving Treatment Timing? Travis J. Lybbert and W. Douglas Gubler, UC Davis Producer Heterogeneity in Crop Insurance Product Decisions within Major Corn Producing States, Shyam Adhikari, Eric J. Belasco, and Thomas O. Knight, Texas Tech University Recap of the Crop Insurance Industry Losses for 2008: What Can We Learn from Models? Oscar Vergara, Gerhard Zuba and Jack Seaquist, AIR Worldwide Corporation Evaluation of the Actuarial Performance of Federal Crop Insurance Programs, Joshua D. Woodard, Gary D. Schnitkey and Bruce J. Sherrick, University of Illinois The Relationship Between the ACRE Program and Crop Insurance, Nick Paulson, Gary Schnitkey and Carl Zulauf, University of Illinois and Ohio State University Resolving Expected Utility Paradoxes, Lindon J. Robison and Robert S. Shupp, Michigan State University Current Issues in Crop Insurance, Richard Anderson, USDA Mission and Objectives of the Southern Region Risk Management Education Center, Ken Stokes, SRRMEC