The Exchange - Released Today

 Meet AAEA 2015 Fellow: C. Peter Timmer

AAEA News

• Housing and Registration is Open: 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting
• 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting: Abstract Decision
• Call for submissions: 2016 ASSA Annual Meeting
• 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting Post-Conference Workshop
• 2015 Extension Competition for Graduate Students
• Under Graduate Student Section Activities Announcement
• San Francisco On Demand
• Call for Selected Poster Reviewers
• Renew Your AAEA Membership for 2015
• Call for Participation: 2015 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association AEM/ Graduate Student Section Case Study Competition
• Extension Tour: Sonoma County Wine, Apple Cider, and Olive Oil
• Register for the 2015 Employment Center
• International Section: Announcement of Track Sessions
• International Section Track Session: Economics of Food Losses and Waste: What are the right questions?
• Agricultural Finance and Management (AFM) Section Track Sessions

Other News

• International Agricultural Risk, Finance, and Insurance Conference (IARFIC)
• Crop Insurance and the 2014 Farm Bill: Reports and Analyses from the Field
• AJAE Virtual Issue

Upcoming Deadlines

Member in the news: Marc Bellemare

 Good Question: What Foods Contain GMOs?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Chipotle announced Monday says the food it prepares will be free of genetically modified organisms or GMOs. It’s the first major restaurant chain to make this change. In 2013, the Mexican grill was also the first to tell customers which foods contained GMOs.

According to the Center for Food Safety, 75 percent of processed foods have been genetically modified. The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not require companies to label foods as such.

So, what foods contain GMOs? Good Question.

Up to 93 percent of corn and 94 percent of soybeans are genetically modified in the United States.

“Considering there is corn in just about everything we eat and there is high-fructose corn syrup in many of the foods we eat, there’s GMOs in a lot of the things that we eat,” said Marc Bellemare, an applied economist at the University of Minnesota. “If you’ve ever had a soda, chances are almost 100% that you’ve consumed genetically modified crops.”

Anything labelled “organic” is non-GMO. Most of the fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S. have also not been genetically modified. Among some of the exceptions: some squash, zucchini, papaya, sugar beets and one kind of apple. Earlier this year, the USDA approved the planting of an apple resistant to turning brown.

The meat we eat hasn’t been genetically modified, but most of the animal feed in the U.S. contains GMOs.

“A lot of the dairy, milk, cheese that we eat is coming from animals that consume GMOs and it’s in a lot of things that we eat that we don’t really suspect might have it,” said Bellemare.

Chipotle has said its drink will continue to have genetically modified ingredients. It also says it’s working on non-GMO feed for its meat. Its grass-fed beef is not fed with anything containing GMOs.

Read full article >>

Congratulations to Cathy Kling

Congratulations to member Cathy Kling for being elected into the National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates

National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected

The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 15 countries in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Those elected today bring the total number of active members to 2,250 and the total number of foreign associates to 452. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States. 

For the complete list of Elected Members, please visit http://ow.ly/Mfhw5 or click here.

Agricultural Finance and Management (AFM) Section Track Sessions

The AAEA Agricultural Finance and Management (AFM) Section will sponsor two track sessions at the joint AAEA and WAEA meetings this July in San Francisco. The AFM section focuses research efforts on topics related to agricultural and applied finance, credit markets and financial institutions, farm and agribusiness management, financial performance and investment strategies, international and micro finances, land economics, price analysis and forecasting and risk management. The AFM section encourages you to join us for our two track sessions to learn more about current issues in Cooperative Finance and Lending in Volatile Times.

The track sessions are the following:

1. “Current Issues in Cooperative Finance” organized by Brian Briggeman (Kansas State University) with Keri Jacobs (Iowa State University), Phil Kenkel (Oklahoma State University), and Gregory McKee (North Dakota State University) as participants.

2. “Lending in Volatile Times” organized by Ryan Larsen (North Dakota State University) with Nathan Kauffman (Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank), Todd Kuethe (University of Illinois), Frayne Olson (North Dakota State University), Lee Shulz (Iowa State University), Christopher Wolf (Michigan State University), and Joleen Hadrich (Colorado State University) as participants.

We look forward to thought-provoking discussions and interactions within these track sessions in July.

International Section Track Session: Economics of Food Losses and Waste: What are the right questions?

The International Section track sessions and is scheduled for Monday, July 27, 2015 from 2:45 PM - 4:15 PM in Sierra I. Come to hear presentations by Steve Sonka on “Reducing Postharvest Loss: Are We Asking the Right Questions?”, Harry de Gorter on “Economics of Food Losses and Waste: Concepts and Practical Implications,” David Just on “The Role of “Nudge” Type Polices in Reducing Food Waste: A Behavioral Economics Approach,” and discussions by Tom Johnson and Nadia Streletskaya. Waste and loss have been widely discussed but not deeply analyzed. This session will provide an opportunity to explore these issues more extensively and stimulate ideas for further research.