Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

2005 Committee Officers: Committee Chair: Scott W. Fausti, South Dakota State Univ. Program Chair: Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois. Incoming Program Chair: David Just, Cornell University. Administrative Advisor: Dan McLemore, University of Tennessee. Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting: Dan McLemore, the committees administrative advisor, informed the committee that Southern Regional Experiment Station Directors have approved the committees renewal request and the authorization of SCC-76 has been extended until 2009. The committee membership appreciates the hard work Barry Barnett (Univ. of GA) who wrote the renewal proposal and Dan McLemore who provided leadership during the administrative process of renewing the authorization of SCC-76. Fen Hunt, CSREES representative, provided an update on current federal budget issues concerning funding for agriculture. Dr. Hunt provided handouts on current funding projections. The committee discussed the groups website and if Bob Taylor (Auburn University) is willing to continue maintaining the site at Auburn. Gary Schnitkey volunteered to contact Dr. Taylor and report back to the committee on this issue. The committee also decided to look into the possibility of placing abstracts on the AGECON SEARCH website. Scott Fausti volunteered to look into this possible outlet for the committees research. The dates for the meeting next year will be March 16 - 18, 2006. Gary Schnitkey will serve as the 2006 Committee Chair. Gary will select next years meeting site. David Just volunteered and was elected by the committee to be the 2006 Program Chair. It was decided to implement a registration fee for future meetings. This fee will cover the cost of the meeting room, refreshment breaks, and the Thursday evening reception. The exact amount of the registration fee will be determined later based on the estimated cost of these items and will be included in materials publicizing the 2006 meeting. The committee decided that it is the responsibility of the Program Chair to collect the registration fee and pay local expenses. This years meeting was held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel Myrtle Beach. Total expenses for food and audio-visual equipment rental came to $1,351.83. Membership attendance was 25. A $50 registration fee was collected at the meeting, for a total of $1,250.00. The short-fall was covered by Scott Fausti. SCC-76 maintains a comprehensive website at: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/agriculture/agrisk/. Date Submitted: April 10, 2005

The SCC-76 annual meeting on the economics and management of risk in agricultural and natural resources was held at Myrtle Beach, SC. 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 14 presentations. After each presentation, ample time was allowed for discussion and feedback from meeting participants. Gary Schnitkey organized a comprehensive program with speakers covering work on topics dealing with insurance product development and analysis, hedging, forward contracting, the use of options in agriculture, economics of food safety, evaluating risk attitude of farm operators, economics of government support programs and ag environmental issues, measuring issues associated with crop revenue and yield distributions, and the measurement of risk attitudes. Presentations were as follows: Buschena, David, and Kevin McNew. "An Exploration of Market Pricing Efficiency During the Dairy Options Pilot Program." Coble, Keith H., Robert Dismukes, and Joseph W. Glauber. "Private Crop Insurers and the Fund Allocation Decision." Fausti, Scott, and Matt Diersen. "Selling Slaughter Cattle on a Gird: Did Mandatory Livestock Price Reporting Rules Make a Difference?" Harri, Ardian, Keith Coble, Cumhur Buguk, and Thomas Knight." Crop Yields Normality: A Reconciliation of Previous Research." Just, David, and Steve Wu. "The Positive or Negative Incentives in Contracts and Non-Expected Utility." Kurkalova, Lyubov. "Discounting Carbon Sequestered in Agricultural Soils: The Case of a Risk Averse Aggregator." Lybbert, Travis, J., and David R. Just. "Wealth, Farmer Characteristics and Risk Aversion." Rejesus, Rod, Cesar L. Escalante and Bruce Sherrick. "Attitudes toward Government Support Programs in Agriculture: A View from Insured and Non-Insured Farmers." Schumann, Keith P., and James W. Richardson. "SERF Surfaces and Generalized Utility Functions." Sherrick, Bruce, Gary Schnitkey, and Scott Irwin. "Methods for Simulating Crop Revenue Distributions." Tauer, Loren W., Cameron Nightingale, Renata Ivanek, and Martin Wiedmann. "Optimal Levels of Inputs under Risk to Control Listeria monocytogenes Contamination at a Smoked Fish Plant." Vedenov, Dmitry, James E. Epperson, and Barry J. Barnett. "Designing Catastrophe Bonds to Securitize Disaster Risks in Agriculture: Case of Georgia Cotton." Zuba, Gerhard, Oscar Vergara, and Tim Doggett. "Separating the Climate and Technological Contributions to Crop Yields: An Application to Crop Yield Distributions."