JAAE web site http://www.agecon.uga.edu/~jaae/jaae.htm
SAEA web site http://www.saea.org

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

As we begin our 31st year, I would like to introduce to you the new slate of officers of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as your President this upcoming year. Eduardo Segarra of Texas Tech University is the Past President, Hal Harris of Clemson University is SAEA President-Elect, Hector Zapata of Louisiana State University is the First Vice President, and Kimberly Jensen of the University of Tennessee is the Second Vice President. Charles Moss and James Seale, Jr. continue as editors of the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics (JAAE). Michael Dicks and Phil Kenkel of Oklahoma State University are in the final stage of their term as Secretary/Treasurers. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Eduardo Segarra for his outstanding leadership and superb ability to conduct the Association's business last year, and for his hard work in the successful approval by the SAEA membership of our new Constitution and Bylaws. I also wish to thank both Eduardo and Past President Patricia Duffy for their work in the successful search for new Secretary/Treasurers. Walter Prevatt and Robert Nelson of Auburn University will become the Association's new Secretary/Treasurers this summer. The Association greatly appreciates the hard work and efforts of Michael Dicks and Phil Kenkel, as well as Gloria Cook and Norma Eddington of Oklahoma State, for a job well done in keeping the SAEA running smoothly.

Memphis Meeting Highlights. I am pleased to report that this year's SAEA meetings in Memphis were a success. Thanks to everyone who participated. Attending the meetings were 206 regular members, 60 graduate students, and 71 undergraduate students, totaling 337 meeting participants, up 11% from the 1998 meetings. We had strong presentations in all sessions. Damona Doye organized an excellent set of invited paper sessions. These sessions included Surviving Merger Mania: Effect of Commercial Bank and Farm Credit Mergers on Rural Credit; Risk Management Through Alternative Production Practices and Management Techniques; and Implications of the Changing Political Environment on Southern Tobacco Farms and Rural Economies. All of these sessions were well attended, presenters did a tremendous job, and subsequent discussions were superb. Hopefully, all invited paper session presenters have forwarded their presentations to JAAE editors Charles Moss and James Seale, Jr. for publication. .

Hector Zapata coordinated an excellent selected paper and organized symposia program. He produced a professional publication of program abstracts for distribution at the meetings, as well as on the web; see Hector's homepage at http://rich.agadm.lsu.edu/Faculty/zapata/a_page.htm Hector had 166 selected paper abstracts submitted, up from 142 submissions in the previous year. Of those, 133 selected papers were presented at the meetings. In addition, we had 11 organized symposia presentations; two of these were cross-listed with rural sociology. One highlight of the Memphis meetings was the Tuesday night SAEA reception at the "Rendezvous Club." About 175 SAEA members were present for famous Memphis barbecue. This event was a big hit! Thanks go to Jim Seale for suggesting it, to Eduardo Segarra for a "site visit" and to Mike Dicks for coordinating the details with the restaurant. I think we were all in the mood to celebrate!

Awards. This year, the number of nominations for awards given by the Association was high. I want to encourage you to continue nominating deserving individuals. We are all well aware that it is extremely meaningful to be recognized by our peers. The Association was honored to have Howard Clonts of Auburn University, Harold Love of the University of Kentucky, and Bill Miller of the University of Georgia accept the Lifetime Achievement Award for their outstanding contributions to our profession and our region. A summary of their contributions and career achievements will be included in an upcoming issue of the JAAE. Thanks to Patricia Duffy for her leadership and to the other members of the lifetime achievement award committee, Carlton Davis, Leo Polopolus, and Carl Anderson for their service in these selections.

I had the pleasure of coordinating the teaching, extension, and graduate student paper awards this past year. Congratulations to both Bob Burton of Kansas State University and Jeffrey Jordan of the University of Georgia, winners of the teaching award for their outstanding work on teaching farm management and water resource economics, respectively. Thanks to Bert Greenwalt, Robert Nelson, and Bill Park, members of the teaching award committee for their service in this selection. Congratulations to Lee Meyer and Betty King of the University of Kentucky, winners of the extension award for their outstanding work on the Kentucky Leadership for Agricultural and Environmental Sustainability project. Thanks to Tony Windham, Jim Pease and Merritt Taylor, members of the extension award committee for their service in this selection. Congratulations to Yvonne Acheampong of the University of Georgia, winner of the graduate student paper award for her paper on international variation of return on equity in the food and beverage industries. Thanks to Barry Goodwin, Jeff Gillespie, Tesfa Gebrenedhin, and Mike Reed, members of the graduate student paper committee for their service in this selection.

James Seale, Jr. and Charles Moss, editors of the Journal, with the help of the editorial council, were in charge of the difficult task of selecting the 1997 outstanding JAAE article. Congratulations to Laura Martin of Michigan State University for her winning article entitled "Production Contracts, Risk Shifting, and Relative Performance Payments in the Pork Industry." Thanks to the editors and the members of the editorial council for their service in this selection.

This year there were 17 competitively selected posters at the meetings. Congratulations to Lonnie R. Vandeveer, Steven A. Henning, Gary A. Kennedy, and Huizhen Niu, winners of this year's first place poster award for their poster entitled "Spatial Data Analysis Procedures for Exploring Rural Land Markets." Congratulations also to the second and third place poster award winners: second place, John Van Sickle, Thomas H. Spreen and Charlene Brewster for "Global Environmental Policy and U.S. Agricultural Trade: Methyl Brovide and Southern Agriculture," and third place, Glen Sutton, Martin Redfern, Drew D. Hardy, and Karen J. Strain for "The Different Perceptions about On-Farm Environmental Issues Between Urban Residents and Rural Residents." Thanks to Barry Barnett of Mississippi State University, for chairing the selected posters committee and to Tim Woods of the University of Kentucky and Sukant Misra of Texas Tech University for serving on this committee. Their hard work coordinating this part of the meetings are most appreciated.

I am pleased to report that the undergraduate academic quiz bowl competition was well attended with 71 undergraduate students from 14 universities, a new record for participation! This continuous buildup of momentum is extremely rewarding, given that the quiz bowl was initiated in 1995, at the New Orleans meeting. Thanks to the many advisors who have made it a success. Congratulations to this year's academic quiz bowl winning team: Benji Leaphart from Clemson University, Steven Southwell from the University of Florida, Kim Hayes from Virginia Tech and Kimberly White from Oklahoma State University.

Thanks to Carl Dillon of the University of Kentucky, Chair of the Student Affairs Committee, junior advisor James Casey of Sam Houston State University and student representative Arthur Neal, of the University of Arkansas for their work on the academic quiz bowl, and the coordination of the graduate fair and the reception for students with our Secretary/Treasurers. Additional thanks go to University of Kentucky graduate students Ernie Bazen and Heath Hoagland, and University of Arkansas research specialist Alan Pearce. All three were instrumental in the smooth running of the quiz bowl. Also thanks to the many individuals who served as judges and to the departments who participated in the graduate fair; your involvement is appreciated!

New SAEA Constitution. At our annual business meeting, the SAEA membership approved a new constitution and bylaws. Past-President Eduardo Segarra's tireless efforts to improve the structure of the SAEA are to be commended. Key changes include a reconfiguration of the Association's board, which will begin with the election of officers next fall. Instead of a potential 5 year commitment by officers, the new constitution creates a 3 year commitment through the election of a President-Elect, who then becomes SAEA President the following year, and Past-President the subsequent year. Additionally, the new constitution creates a 3 member board with staggered 3-year terms. Reassignment of the duties of the former 1st and 2nd Vice President (coordination of invited and selected papers, respectively) will be discussed at the June Board meeting, and the Board is definitely open to your suggestions. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to solicit input from you, the membership at large, on this issue. You are welcome to contact me or anyone on the Board with your views or ideas. Potential solutions include volunteers from the SAEA membership to chair a "selected papers review committee," similar to the process used by American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA).

The Year 2000 Meetings. At the SAAS board meeting in Memphis, your SAEA officers got a commitment from SAAS Secretary Vernon Boggs, that next year's SAEA activities would be housed in the host hotel (the Hyatt) for the year 2000 meetings in Lexington, Kentucky. The SAEA is one of the largest groups participating in the SAAS meetings, comprising about 23% of total attendance. For next year's meetings, Hector Zapata will be coordinating the invited paper sessions. The full call for proposals appears elsewhere in this Newsletter. The deadline is May 28. Please contact Hector if you have any questions or if you wish to discuss your ideas about potential invited paper session topics with him.

Eduardo Segarra will coordinate the lifetime achievement award(s), and Hal Harris will coordinate the teaching, extension and graduate student paper awards this year. Nominations will be due sometime early in the fall, but it is never too early to start thinking about these awards. A full announcement will be made in the next newsletter. However, last year's instructions are still posted on our webpage and could be used as a guide if you wish to make an early start on putting a nomination package together. I would like to remind everyone that the graduate student paper award carries a $500 prize, so if you are aware of a good single authored student paper, that was written for an academic course, I encourage you to consider nominating it for this award.

Kimberly Jensen will be in charge of coordinating the selected papers and the organized symposia for next year's meetings. A call for selected papers, symposia and posters will appear in the next issue of the SAEA Newsletter.

Closing Thanks. Thanks again to all of you who participated at the meetings in Memphis. Special thanks to Michael Dicks and Phil Kenkel for all of their hard work, putting on the meetings, putting small and large fires out, and for just putting up with all of us who jam their e-mails and fax machines, and ring their phones off the hook. Finally, on behalf of the Association, I would like to thank Gloria Cook and Norma Eddington of Oklahoma State University for a job well done in registering the meeting participants. Your hard work and many contributions to the Association are greatly appreciated!

In closing, the Memphis meetings were a success and a lot of fun. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the membership for your involvement and support with a special thank you to the SAEA Board both incoming, continuing, and outgoing officers. It has been a pleasure to work with Patricia Duffy, Eduardo Segarra, Damona Doye, Hector Zapata, Michael Dicks, Phil Kenkel, Chung (Charlie) L. Huang, Michael Wetzstein, Charles Moss, and James Seale, Jr.; and I look forward to working with Hal Harris, Kimberly Jensen, Walter Prevatt and Robert Nelson. Special thanks also go to Gloria Cook and Norma Eddington for all their hard work.

I enjoyed serving as President-Elect this past year, and I look forward to working with you, the SAEA membership, this coming year. Thank you for your continued involvement and support of the SAEA.

Mary Marchant
President

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The 1999 Annual Conference of the Food Distribution Research Society

The Theme: Research Priorities for Food Distribution: Partnerships for the Next Millennium

The Date: October 17-20, 1999
(Sunday through Wednesday)

The Location: The Menger Hotel, San Antonio, Texas
(http://mengerhotel.com)

The Highlights:	Six research priorities will be highlighted:
		Changing Food Distribution Patterns in the 
		Western Hemisphere and Emerging 
		Opportunities and Challenges·

		Impact of Food Safety Regulations on the 
		Distribution Sector · Changes in the Supply
		Chain of the Food Distribution System	
		Trends in the Food Industry and Policy 
		Implications · Data Mining and Information
		Systems in Food Retailing 
		Global Economic Crisis and Food Exports
		The sessions on Monday and Tuesday will
		deal with each of these research priorities.
		Speakers from academia, private industry, 
		and government will address the issues 
		indigenous to each research session.  

Emphasis will be placed on how academia and the government
		can play a role in assisting the food 
		distribution industry.  Research reports and 
		updates from the FDRS membership will be 
		given on Wednesday morning.

More Highlights: A tour of the H.E.B. facilities in San Antonio
		·A Sunday afternoon sightseeing and 
		shopping tour to the Texas Hill  Country for 
		conference participants and their spouses, 
		including  stops at the cities of Boerne and 
		Comfort, famous for antiques An enchanting 
		ride down the San Antonio River on Tuesday 
		evening for participants and spouses ·A mid-
		morning to early-afternoon shopping tour for
		spouses to the Alamo Quarry

The Registration Info:  To register, contact Connie Falk, New 
		Mexico State University, by phone  505/646-
		4731 or e-mail cfalk@nmsu.edu.  
		Registration fee is $225.00.

The Reservation Info:  To make reservations, call the hotel at
		800/345-9285 or 210/223-4361 ·The contract 
		rate is $108.00 Single/Double plus 15% tax
		·The reservation deadline is September 16,
		1999 for the contract rate
 
The Conclusion:	The Annual Conference promises to be most 
		stimulating, both from a research perspective 
		and a social perspective.  Please mark your 
		calendar now and begin to make plans to 
		attend.

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VITA Seeks Technical Professionals to Assist Developing Country Issues

Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) has responded to inquiries for technical information from individuals and groups in developing countries for more than 40 years. That service continues today in a revamped Internet-based structure. VITA maintains a roster of committed and seasoned professional volunteers to prepare e-mail responses to inquiries. The database is used to place registrants into private listservs based on nine broad technical categories. As requests related to a category come to VITA, the request is automatically distributed by the appropriate list. Self-selected volunteers then respond to the requestors' needs.

VITA wishes to update its database of volunteers in several disciplines. If you would like to join this group and participate in the exciting opportunities and satisfaction of responding to information requests, please complete the form found at

www.vita.org/vv/vreg.htm

This is not a location for job search registration. It is intended for experienced professionals wishing to provide technical assistance to meet challenges in foreign countries, especially those of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

For more information, contact vv@vita.org

*******************

Call for Proposals - Invited Papers Sessions SAEA Meetings Jan. 29 - Feb. 2, 2000 Lexington, Kentucky

The Southern Agricultural Economics Association is soliciting proposals for Invited Papers Sessions for the 2000 SAEA meeting in Lexington, Kentucky. The Board seeks proposals that will be of broad interest to members and that will have a long-lasting impact into the next Century. Proposals should include a session title, topics to be covered with preliminary paper titles, paper presenters and discussants, a brief rationale for the session and its importance to the southern region. List names and affiliations of presenters and discussants. No more than four people should be proposed to present and/or discuss papers and all proposed participants must agree to be at the meetings prior to submitting the Invited Paper proposals. An independent session moderator will be chosen by the board. All accepted proposals must submit a PowerPoint presentation for board review of acceptability prior to the meetings (guidelines to be provided upon acceptance). It is the organizer's primary responsibility to correspond with and keep all participants on schedule. Invited Papers are normally published in the August issue of the Journal of Agricultural & Applied Economics.

Proposals must be received by May 28, 1999. FAX submissions will not be accepted. Please send submissions to

Hector Zapata
101 AG ADMIN BLDG
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Ph: (225) 388-2766
FAX (225) 388-2716
Email xp2647@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu
WebSite
http://rich.agadm.lsu.edu/faculty/zapata/hoz.htm

Thank you in advance for your comments, Hector