Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Bob Shulstad reported on renewal of SERA 30, informing that we need to submit Appendix E forms. He told us proceedings have been difficult to find, suggesting that we should have abstracts and power point files of the presentations accessible by web. Proceedings have been difficult to find as they have been posted on Southern Rural Development Center's website at Mississippi State University. Thus, future proceedings will be placed on a dedicated website at Louisiana State University. Krishna Paudel awaits previously promised funds of $2,000 for site development from Bill Park. A motion was passed to authorize a formal request for website development funds. John Westra of Louisiana State U was voted in as the new secretary-treasurer of SERA 30. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for May 18-19 2006, in Auburn Alabama; it will be organized by Diane Hite. The main theme will be Homeland Security with an invasive species subtopic. The 2007 meeting may be held in Washington, DC so NRCS and others could attend. An invited paper session for the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting was discussed. The session will be based on Pete Goldsmith's, Ron Fleming's and John Westra's papers on evaluation of agro-environmental policies and programs. Farm Foundation requested an issue report from the meeting. These are lay-oriented and consolidated for each topic covered in the meeting.

For each SERA 30 meeting, a major topic and a subtopic relevant to southern agriculture and natural resources are chosen. A call for papers goes out to a wide range of individuals, including those outside the group. In the 2005 meeting, participants focused on economics of environmental justice, and economics of water quality. This year we were successful in attracting papers by two individuals outside the group: Yasmin Fozard from Morgan State University presented an urban planning paper related to environmental justice, and Pete Goldsmith of University of Illinois presented a paper related to water quality. A total of 14 papers were presented. Six papers detailed many innovations to assist policy makers and resource managers in addressing the issue of water quality. Goldsmith et al. provided a methodology for farmers and communities to identify optimal locations and correct compensation for those affected by animal operations. Hall et al. similarly use GIS and survey methods to develop a methodology that can help control non point pollution from dairy operations. Pagoulatos et al. and Westra et al. examined impacts of two conservation policies, Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Security Program. Letson et al. examined the usefulness of weather information in agricultural management, while Parkhurst and Shogren used experimental economics as a development tool for smart subsidy programs. In a seventh related paper, Thomas et al. examined the use of assurance bonds to control against escape of nonnative species in aquaculture. Seven papers were presented in the area of environmental justice. Fleming et al. explored the socioeconomic factors related to citing of waste sites, while Ho and Hite examined the relationships among housing values, cancer mortality and environmental quality in the southeast. Lorenzo et al., and Fozard presented results of neighborhood level studies of environmental justice. Three of the papers in the session - two by Devkota et al., and one by Thomas - were related to recreation demand models. Titles of the papers presented can be found in the publications list following. The papers are all to be published in proceedings later in 2005.

"Measuring the Impacts of Confined Animal Feeding Operations: Technical Issues and Policy Implications." Peter Goldsmith, University of Illinois, Jungik Kim, Korean Land Development Company, Michael Thomas Florida A&M University. "The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) in Kentucky: Does it Address Environmental Quality Problems?" Angelos Pagoulatos, Ronald A. Fleming and Kyle C. Day. University of Kentucky. "The Uncertain Value of Perfect ENSO Phase Forecasts: Stochastic Agricultural Prices and Intra-Phase Climatic Variations." David Letson, University of Miami, Guillermo Podesta, University of Miami, and Andres Ferreyra, University of Florida. "The Conservation Security Program: Economic and Environmental Effects." John V. Westra, Louisiana State University and Bruce Vondracek and Julie Zimmerman, University of Minnesota. "Integrating Survey Information and GIS Modeling Approach to Develop an Optimal Decision Making Tool for Controlling Water Pollution in the Louisiana Dairy Production Region." Larry Hall, Krishna Paudel, Wayne Gauthier, John Westra, Huizhen Niu, Louisiana State University and Keshav Bhattarai, Central Missouri State University. "Smart Subsidies for Habitat Conservation." Gregory M. Parkhurst, Mississippi State University, Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming. "The Use of Environmental Assurance Bonds to Reduce the Establishment and Spread of the Invasive Black Carp." Michael H. Thomas, Florida A&M University, Terrill R. Hanson, Mississippi State University, and Nick Stratis, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. "Environmental Justice Revisited: The Case of Kentucky." Ronald Fleming, Angelos Pagoulatos, University of Kentucky and Arun K. Srinivasan, Indiana University. "The Count Data Analysis of Coastal Recreation Visits in Elmer's Island." Nirmala Devkota, Krishna P. Paudel, Larry Hall and Rex H. Caffey, Louisiana State University. "Baltimore's Last Frontier: The Middle Branch Waterfront." Yasmin M. Fozard, Morgan State University. "Geospatial Measures for Evaluating Amenity Open Spaces in Urban Communities." Alfredo B. Lorenzo, Erica Ellis and Samuel E. Hand, Florida A&M University. "Environmental Justice in Southeastern Housing Markets." Sa Chau Ho and Diane Hite, Auburn University. "Multinomial Logit for Recreational Choice Modeling: The Case of Elmer's Island." Nirmala Devkota, Krishna P. Paudel, Larry Hall and Rex H. Caffey, Louisiana State University. "Using the Distribution of Consumer Surplus to Measure Equity in Recreation: Five Examples in Florida." Michael H. Thomas, Florida A&M University.