Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The NCCC-134 Regional Research Committee sponsored the 34th annual conference on Applied Commodity Price Analysis, Forecasting, and Market Risk Management on April 20-21 in St. Louis, Missouri. Twenty-six papers were presented by the authors and discussed among meeting participants. The conference meeting holds two concurrent sessions where research papers with similar methods, commodities, and/or issues are organized. The 26 papers were selected by ten members of the NCCC- 134 Executive Committee from 40 two-page prospectuses submitted prior to the conference. The resulting collection of papers ranged in topics that included futures and options market analysis, speculation, market information, policy impacts, effects and management of market risk, price forecasting evaluations, and several other price analysis topics. The format of the meeting allows for extensive discussion of the papers, results, and implications. Preliminary works and findings are encouraged.

Industry participants and well-established academic professionals are invited to speak during the business lunch. The goal of the luncheon speaking session is to discuss industry and research issues and discuss perspectives of successful economists about timely and relevant issues in agricultural markets. Presenting during the lunch allows discussion with the entire body of conference participants. This year, Mr. Mike Steenhoek, Executive Director of the Soy Transportation Coalition was the featured luncheon speaker. He discussed the economic implications of policies and regulations of surface transportation of agricultural commodities.

As with 2014, the format continued to feature a paper session that had a complementary theme to the topic presented by the luncheon speaker (i.e., markets’ reactions to changing landscapes and policies), and presented in the luncheon room. This allowed all lunch attendees to participate in this special session. Academic presenters were encouraged to focus their papers on the practical results, rather than methodology, given the large number of industry representatives that attended the luncheon.

Following the research paper presentations program on Tuesday, a short business meeting of the NCCC-134 executive committee and other interested participants was held. NCCC-134 Committee Co- Coordinators, Matt Diersen and Matt Roberts, led the meeting. Matt Diersen announced details for electronic submission of completed papers to the NCCC-134 website, hosted by farmdoc. The site will continue to hold committee announcements as well as all papers from all past meetings.

Randall Fortenberry brought a motion to discuss moving the annual meeting to an alternative location. After discussion among the business meeting attendees, there was a motion to further explore other potential venues before voting on whether the move the meeting. The motion to investigate was moved.

Lastly, Matt Diersen and Matt Roberts stepped down as co-chairs of the NCCC-134 project. They were thanked by the group for their five years of service in the position. Anton Bekkerman (Montana State University) and Berna Karali (University of Georgia) submitted their candidacy for co-chairing the project over the next five years. The executive council motioned to accept the bids and the motion passed. Bekkerman and Karali agreed to coordinate the 2016 meeting and to coordinate the re-approval process.

Subject to venue availability, the 2016 meeting will be held at the same location on April Next year’s meeting is scheduled for April 18-19 in St. Louis, Missouri. Format will be similar to this year’s meeting with presented papers selected by a screening committee from a set of proposals due in October 2015. The specific location of the 2016 meeting will again be the Crowne Plaza St. Louis – Downtown Hotel.

Meeting Adjourned: 4:00 p.m. April 21, 2015.

(Meeting agenda is attached)

The 2015 annual meeting marked the 34th such meeting of the NCCC-134 project. The project continues its strong tradition of bringing together academic researchers with industry participants to interact, exchange ideas, and communicate new knowledge in the area of market and price analysis within agricultural markets.

The project continues to grow its cross-institutional and international linkages. Collaborations across institutions is a key objectives of this project. Furthermore, because agricultural and food production markets are so globally integrated, these linkages are critical to obtaining a better understanding of agricultural markets and the dynamics of prices within those markets. This year, nine of the 26 papers represent collaborative works by researchers housed at different institutions, including three international institutions.