Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The 2006 annual meeting of the NC1003 committee was held at Jekyll Island, Georgia, March 24-25. A one and one-half day conference was held on the topic, Funding Agricultural Research: Evolving Institutional Frameworks. There were 15 presentations by NC-1003 members and invited speakers. Invitees included Per Pinstrup-Andersen (Cornell University) the current President of the American Association of Agricultural Economists who spoke on Changes in International Funding of Agricultural Research and Kurt A. Zuelke, National Science and Technology Council, Executive Office of the President who spoke on Competitive Grants and SAES Research: An Administration Perspective. There were also two featured presentations by rural sociologists. A business meeting was held at the end of the conference. Wallace Huffman, outgoing president, welcomed us and welcomed new members: Leland Glenna (Penn State U.), Dana Hoag (Colorado State), and Guanming Shi (U. of Wisconsin). Members who had not presented in the conference session were then given a chance to update the group on their recent research. Loren Tauer (Cornell) and Timothy Dalton (U. of Maine) both update us on their research work. Marshall Martin, administrative advisor to the group, spoke about the meeting and progress of the group. Marshall complemented us on a strong program and an interesting set of research. He encouraged us to do more outreach of our research results to the Land Grant system and policy makers. Bruce McWilliams (USDA-CSREES) spoke to the group, commending our work and reiterating the importance of disseminating it outside the NC  1003 committee. He encouraged us to produce short summaries of what our work does for the American public. Wallace Huffman reported on the edited volume from last years conference which should be out soon. He also reported that an issue report has been produced by the Farm Foundation based on last years conference. The NC1003 Officer Nominating Committee, chaired by George Norton (VA), nominated George Frisvold (AZ) for Chair and Jeremy Foltz (WI) as Secretary. These nominations were approved unanimously. We initiated plans for next years conference which will be hosted by UC Berkeley and held in conjunction with a conference in honor of Jeannie Lanjouw. Brian Wright volunteered to take charge of the organization with help from David Zilberman and Carl Pray. Finally, NC-1003 members took time to thank Wally Huffman and note our great appreciation for his excellent service as Chair of the project for so many years.

This year the project has produced 44 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters in books (see attached publications list). Of these publications, 9 were co-authored by two or more NC-1003 participants from different institutions, working collaboratively. Along with increased collaboration between agricultural economists and rural sociologists, NC1003 participants have collaborated with scientists in the following fields on project-related research: agronomy, animal science, biochemistry, biotechnology, crop science, entomology, forestry, plant biology, plant breeding, plant pathology, plant science, psychology, range science, and weed science. This years annual conference also witnessed increase participation from rural sociologists as well as agricultural economists, with presentations by rural sociologists fro AESs in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Revised papers from last years conference will be published later this year in the edited volume Just, R.E., J.M. Alston, and D. Zilberman (eds). The Economics of Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnologies. Springer-Verlag publishers, 2006 (forthcoming). Regular edited volumes published by NC-1003 participants, focusing on particular themes is a key way to stimulate member collaboration, obtain peer responses and suggestions and focus research on specific problem areas. Last years conference papers served as a basis for Economics of Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnology: Consumer preferences, industry structure and economic forces shape the regulatory process. Farm Foundation Issue Report | Issue Five, August 2005. In addition members prepared papers and conference sessions for the 2005 meetings of the American Association of Agricultural Economists, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, the New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, and the 26th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) .