President’s Column

Reports to the 2004 Annual General Meeting

   President’s Report

   Secretary’s Report

   Treasurer’s Report

   AJARE Editors’ Report

   Manager – Promotion and Development’s Report

AARES 2005 Annual Conference

AARES Annual Symposium 2004

Noticeboard

Contact Details for Office Bearers and Central Office

Deadline and Advertising

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

By Jeff Bennett

I must admit to being quite daunted by the task ahead of me this year. We have a truly great organization with a heritage that is now almost 50 years old and being at its ‘helm’ I take to be a considerable responsibility. This burden is, however, considerably reduced by the tremendous team that makes up the Executive of the Federal Council. Bill Malcolm whose good grace and wisdom was displayed on numerous occasions in 2003 when dealing with difficult issues will continue to make a valuable contribution as outgoing President. Deborah Peterson’s enthusiasm and thoughtfulness will be welcomed as President-Elect. Mal Wegener’s dedication to his task as Treasurer is a great asset to the Society as is Liz Petersen’s reliability and competence as secretary. I’m also looking forward to working with Lili Pechey who has taken on the role of Manager, Promotions and Development. Knowing that this team is alongside makes me look forward to the year ahead.

And it is shaping up to be quite a year. It started on a high note with the highly successful Melbourne conference. For those of you who weren’t able to make it to the conference, be assured that it upheld the extraordinarily high standard set by our conferences of the past few years. Congratulations are due to the Local Organising Committee – especially Mark Eigenraam and Charlotte Duke – for their efforts; and to Deborah Peterson for organising the pre-conference workshop on Water Reform. Of course successful conferences cause headaches for the LOC of the next conferences. The bar just keeps getting higher! So Garry Griffith and his team from the New England Branch are already working on plans for the 2005 conference. They have made a strong start by announcing that the conference will be held in the Coffs Harbour district on the NSW north coast. I can’t imagine too many more pleasant places to be than Coffs in February 2005 so I’m looking forward to seeing a big crowd of members there.

Changes are in the wind for our Journal. The Mullen/O’Donnell editorial era comes to an end mid year. John and Chris have served the Society well in maintaining the standard and status of the AJARE over the past three years. It’s not an easy task facing the pressures of authors eager to have their papers published with a constant eye on the reputation of the Journal as one of the leaders in our profession. Taking on that task is the team from Western Australia made up of Bob Lindner, Dave Pannell and Ross Kingwell. I’m sure I can say on behalf of the whole membership that we wish the WA team all the very best in taking the Journal from strength to strength.

The Society’s agreement with Blackwells for the publication of the Journal is also in the process of being renegotiated. Blackwells have indicated that they want to see some changes in the agreement that will improve the financial performance of their operation. One step has already been taken to achieve this goal and at the same time improve the financial position of the Society. That involved an agreement to pass over to Blackwells the running of the editorial office. This provides Blackwells with an additional revenue stream but also allows cost savings for the Society in running the Central Office. Further negotiations are underway regarding some presentational features of the Journal – such as margin widths –designed to cut publication costs. I expect that the May Federal Council meeting will put the finishing touches on the new agreement and that it will be signed mid-year.

Also high on the agenda for the May meeting will be planning for the 2006 International Agricultural Economics Association (IAAE) Conference to be held on the Gold Coast. Mal Wegener has formed a local organising committee and appointed a professional conference organiser to get the ball rolling on what will be a major undertaking for the Society. Issues to be debated at the May Council meeting will include what implications running the international association’s conference will have on our own 2006 Annual Conference and Symposium. This will be the year of our Society’s 50^th Annual Conference so we will need to make sure that what we do is special!

Should you have any ideas regarding how the 50^th Annual AARES Conference could be marked – or indeed if you have any ideas to further the interests of our Society, I’d welcome your input. Email me at jeff.bennett@anu.edu.au.

All the best

Jeff Bennett

REPORTS TO THE 2004 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

12^TH FEBRUARY 2004, MELBOURNE, VIC

President’s Report

By Bill Malcolm

In 2003, core membership numbers remained reasonably stable, with the usual fluctuation with the addition of new members associated with Symposium attendees, and decline in numbers associated with members who signed as a consequence of attending the previous years Symposium.

During the year, members of the AARES had the benefit of a couple of outstanding professional events — the annual conference organized by the W.A. branch and held in Fremantle and the annual symposium organized by the Canberra branch and held in Canberra. The latest disciplinary research and thinking was presented to highly appreciative audiences at both of these outstanding events. The membership is indebted to these branches for providing such high quality professional opportunities.

The AARES is in a sound financial position, largely as a result of cash surpluses delivered by the successful annual conference and the symposium, which in turn derive from strong sponsorship of these events. In total, these two events contributed a cash surplus of over $30,000. The AARES needs to be in a strong financial position in order to deliver the International Conference of Agricultural Economists in 2006 in Queensland.

The AARES ordinary operating income (before conference and symposium surpluses that derive largely from sponsorship) still barely meets operating expenses, that have risen steadily over the past 6-8 years. The bulk of AARES operating expenses are related to the administration and publication of the AJARE and the operation of the central office. Change is needed and changes are to be made in 2004 to reduce the proportion of total income accounted for by journal publishing and central office expenses. In essence, journal administration services are going to be provided by Blackwells who came up with a competitive quote to do so, and the central office operation is to be separated from the journal administration, enabling the true costs of central office administration to be identified clearly, trimmed and contained. Under the new arrangements the ratio of annual operating expenditures resulting from the journal and the central office to annual operating income before conference and symposium surpluses will be reduced to a level that we can be more confident is sustainable.

Two teams of potential AJARE editors, one from WA and one from NSW, submitted bids to take over editorship of the AJARE when the term of the current editors expires during 2004. Details of these two bids were widely publicized amongst the membership, and feedback from members was provided to Executive and Council about members’ preferred editorial team. During discussions with Blackwells about renewing the contract to publish the journal, Blackwells expressed interest in providing the administration of the journal on a contract basis. The two editorial bid teams were informed of this, and they were invited to provide another set of bids for consideration under a hypothetical scenario where Blackwells provided the journal administration and the central office functions were located with the office of President.

Further discussion ensued with Blackwells about the administrative systems they have established for handling articles (they currently provide administration services to 13 professional journals, including several international ones). As well, input from editors of several journals that are currently administered by Blackwells was sought. The strong judgements of these editors were that Blackwells administered their journals very well indeed. The systems used were at high standards of professionalism, and represented significant improvement on their previous situations which were similar to our own current systems. Having a settled set of administrative arrangements was considered to be a considerable advantage over having to relocate and re-establish administrative systems every time editors changed. One editor regarded it as a significant advantage that Blackwells provided the scope for continual improvements by being connected to innovations in journal administration and publication that develop internationally.

All things considered, Council decided that a Blackwells-WA editorial team would have a very good probability of meeting the objectives of members, viz., delivering a journal efficiently and in a sustainable manner, and facilitating the achievement of the medium term aim of containing journal and central office costs to a satisfactory proportion of operating income.

Planning is proceeding for the International Agricultural Economics Association Conference to be held in Queensland in 2006. Treasurer Malcolm Wegener attended the IAAE conference in Durban during 2003 and started to pave the way for the delivery of the 2006 conference. A contract between the AARES and the IAAE is being negotiated at present. The AARES Council is taking particular care to minimize the exposure of AARES to risk of losses from uncertain happenings that could have an impact on the financial viability of the conference.

Lisa Brennan has just completed her term as Manager, Development and Promotion. Lisa has done a wonderful job in this role, especially in the area of establishing relationships with sponsors. She attacked with admirable enthusiasm and energy the often onerous tasks involved in maintaining and building profile and membership numbers of the Society. Members owe Lisa a great debt and are extremely appreciative of her efforts. Thanks Lisa. Lisa is going to mentor her replacement in the early days.

It is a great privilege to be President of the AARES, and even more so when one gets to know better more members, and gets the opportunity to work closely with Council members. I was particularly privileged to work closely with the President–Elect Jeff Bennett, and the members of the Executive, Liz Peterson, Mal Wegener, Lisa Brennan, and John Mullen. Tracy Henderson again did a terrific job producing the very informative and useful electronic publication ‘News and Views’. The membership is being exceptionally well served by all the members who work in Council and the Executive.

Sadly, during 2003 AARES lost a very dear friend to many of us, Mike Read, and the world is a lesser place.

Thanks to all members for their support of the position of AARES President 2003.

Secretary’s Report

By Liz Petersen

Activities of the Society during 2003

1. Council of the Society

The 2003 Annual General Meeting was held on 13 February at the Esplanade Hotel, Perth.  At the meeting, the following office bearers were elected:

President:                                                        Bill Malcolm

President Elect:                                               Jeff Bennett

Secretary:                                                       Elizabeth Petersen

Treasurer:                                                       Mal Wegener

Manager Promotion and Development:           Lisa Brennan

Ron Duncan automatically assumed membership of Council on becoming Immediate Past President. The Editors of The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics are John Mullen and Chris O’Donnell – Chris O’Donnell is the member of the Executive Council representing AJARE. Tracy Henderson is Editor of News and Views (but is not a member of the Executive Council).

During 2003, the following members represented their Branches at Council meetings:

New South Wales:                  Jason Crean

Australian Capital Territory:  Jeff Bennett, Ron Duncan

Victoria:                                  Bill Malcolm

Queensland:                            Mal Wegener, George Antony

Western Australia:                  Atakelty Hailu, Ross Kingwell

New England:                         Bob Farquharson

South Australia:                      no representation

North America:                       Julian Alston

New Zealand:                          Frank Scrimgeour

2. Business of Council

Council met four times since the last AGM: 15 February 2003, 31 May 2003, 1 September 2003 and 11 February 2004.

Some of the prominent matters considered by Council in 2003 were:

·       The 2003 (Perth) and 2004 (Melbourne) conferences

·       The 2006 Annual Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists to be held in Brisbane

·       The Annual Symposium held in Canberra on 2 and 3 September 2003

·       Progress with AJARE and Connections

·       Election of the new AJARE editors

·       Sponsorship of the undergraduate prize winners to attend the Melbourne conference

·       Financial management of the Society

3. Committees

The following members were appointed to committees of the Society in 2003:

PhD Thesis Award Panel:       Kevin Parton (chair), Steve Schilizzi and Robyn Hean.

Masters Thesis Award Panel: Michael Burton (chair), Mark Morrison and Sarah Lumley.

4. Branch Activities

Branch office bearers listed are those as at 31 December 2003.

Australian Capital Territory

President         Martin van Bueren

Treasurer         Michael Potter

Secretary         Debbie Templeton

Councillor       Paul Morris

Meetings held in 2003

 Other branch activities

• A glossy promotional postcard was produced for the ACT Branch.

• Martin van Bueren and Jeff Bennett (Committee member) made a presentation to economics undergraduates at the ANU, outlining the merits of AARES and advertising the Undergraduate Award.

•  AARES is now being promoted through the graduate recruitment programs operated by ABARE and the Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF).

•  ACT Branch hosted the 2003 National Symposium. Highlights of the symposium were:

• 189 delegates attended, of whom 21 were speakers.

• Delegate feedback indicated that, overall, the majority of speakers were considered to be of high quality.

• $50 000 of sponsorship was secured.

• Profits to AARES of between $8 000 to $12 000.

• Over 100 new members for the society

Proceedings from the Symposium are being published by RIRDC and will be available through RIRDC for $20 per copy.

New England

President         Bob Farquharson

Treasurer         Garry Griffith

Secretary         Robyn Hean

Councillor       Bob Farquharson

Meetings held in 2003

Other branch activities

The following branch members attended the 25th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) in Durban, South Africa, from August 16-22, 2003: Oscar Cacho, Euan Fleming, Garry Griffith and Roley Piggott.

They presented the following papers, which are published in the IAAE conference proceedings:

Cacho, O.J. and Marshall, G.R., Designing smallholder agroforestry projects for carbon sequestration: the role of abatement costs and transaction costs.

Coelli, T. and Fleming, E., Diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in Papua New Guinea.

Griffith, G.R., Farquharson, R.J., Barwick, S.A., Banks, R.G. and Holmes, W.E., Estimating returns from past investment into beef cattle genetic RD&E in Australia.

They also engaged in the following activities:

·       Euan Fleming chaired an IAAE conference session on Agricultural Trade Liberalisation.

·       Garry Griffith attended two meetings of the IAAE Council as an Australian representative and attended a meeting with the IAAE Executive Committee as a member of the organising committee for the 2006 conference.

·       Roley Piggott attended the IAAE Executive Committee meeting.

New South Wales

President:                    Jason Crean

President Elect:           John Madden

Secretary:                    Inderpal Singh

Treasurer:                   Zhanghue Zhou

Federal Councillor:     Jason Crean

Meetings held in 2003

The NSW Branch would like to thank the Australian Retailers Association for their continued support of AARES by again hosting the seminars throughout the year. We look forward to a productive 2004 and invite members to actively participate in Branch activities.

Queensland

President:                     Neil McLeod

President-elect:            Nicole Stehn

Secretary:                    Tracy Henderson

Treasurer:                    Lili Pechey

Councillor:                  George Antony

Committee Member:    Michael Blakely

Meetings held in 2003

The AARES Queensland Branch met six times in 2003 after the 24^th January 2003 AGM

* Joint AARES/Economics Society of Australia meeting 

South Australia

President:        Thea Mech

Secretary:        Jack Langberg

Treasurer:       Julian Morison

Committee:      Hugh Wynter: Ian Cooper: Mandy

Meetings held in 2003

Victoria

President:        Mark Eigenraam

Secretary:        Charlotte Duke

Treasurer:       vacant

Councillor:      vacant

Activities:

Organisation of the 2004 Conference, Members of the Local Organising Committee were: Mark Eigenraam, Charlotte Duke, Deborah Peterson, Bill Malcolm, Jeff Bennett, Rukman Wimalasuriya

Western Australia

President         David Feldman           

Treasurer         Michael Burton          

Secretary         Tennille Graham        

Councillor       Atakelty Hailu

Meetings held in 2003

A Seminar Series was held for each university semester of 2003. The presenters and topics are provided below

Other branch activities

·        The WA Branch hosted the AARES Annual Conference held in Fremantle, WA during February 2003.

·        The WA Branch sponsored a Contracts Workshop held at The University of Western Australia (UWA). International and local speakers included Professor Bob Chambers, Dr Ben White and Dr Ross Kingwell.

·        The Branch AGM was held August 8^th at UWA.

·        The AARES Undergraduate Award for 2003 was awarded to Julia Horgan in the School of Agricultural and Resource Economics from The University of WA.

New Zealand Branch

President:         Brian Spiers

Secretary:        Julie Murphy

Treasurer:        M Doak

Councillor:      Frank Scrimgeour

A Branch Report was not provided.

North American Branch

President                     Jenni James   

Secretary/Treasurer    Laura McCann

Co-Councillors           Nick Piggott and Julian Alston                      

Meetings held in 2003

Branch meeting and reception in Montreal, 28 July 2003

Other branch activities

At the Branch meeting held in conjunction with the AAEA meetings in Montreal, the third winner of the “Heading South” Travel Award was announced – Jonathan Yoder from Washington State University.  He will be attending the AARES meetings in Melbourne.  The next Branch meeting will be held in conjunction with the AAEA meetings in Denver in August, 2004. 

5. Prize winners

Undergraduate prize winners: [1]

New England:             Stuart Mounter of the University of New England

New South Wales:      Amanda McBride of the University of Sydney

                                    Nalini Prasad of the University of Sydney

Queensland:                Cameron Bosch of the University of Queensland

ACT:                           Sarah Crooks of the Australian National University

New Zealand:              No prize awarded

Western Australia:      Julia Horgan of the University of Western Australia

South Australia:          Gregory Smith of the University of Adelaide

Victoria:                      No prize awarded

Masters Prize winners:

Emma Moran of Lincoln University

The title of her thesis is “An analysis of the costs of the New Zealand threatened species programmes”.

Supervisors: Ross Cullen and Ken Hughey

Jing Zhang of the University of Western Australia

The title of her thesis is "Valuing recreational fishing in WA using a random utility model".                       

Supervisors: Greg Hertzler and Michael Burton

PhD Prize winner: Rick Llewellyn of the University of Western Australia

The title of his PhD is “Adoption of integrated weed management by grain growers”

Supervisors: Bob Lindner, David Pannell and Stephen Powells

Prize for the Best Article in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics: Michael Burton, Dan Rigby and Trevor Young

The title of the article is “Modelling the adoption of organic horticultural technology in the UK using duration analysis”

AARES /AAEA Young Professionals Exchange Travel Award - Heading South

Jonathan Yoder of Washington State University

AARES /AAEA Young Professionals Exchange Travel Award - Heading North

Stuart Whitten of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystem, Canberra

Distinguished Fellows

Julian Alston

Geoff Miller

John Quiggin

Distinguished Life Member

There were no nominations for a Distinguished Life Member

Treasurer’s Report

By Malcolm Wegener

Financial position

Cheque account

The balance in the Society’s cheque account on 31 December 2003, after reconciliation for unpresented cheques, was $41 192.56.

Fixed deposits

In 2002, the majority of the Society’s surplus funds were invested in a Commercial Bill with the Commonwealth Bank which matured on 24 January 2003 having accumulated interest of $4 620.  Another $50 000 surplus funds in the cheque account were placed on fixed deposit towards the end of 2002 to mature at the same time in early January 2003.  The funds from both fixed deposits with interest were reinvested on maturity, giving the Society a total of $169 613 invested on fixed deposit.  Details are provided in the table below.

Investment Schedule

 Note: Council decided during 2002 to re-name the Alan Lloyd Fellowship Fund as the Distinguished Fellows Fund and agreed to replenish the Fund in view of the substantial surpluses made from annual conferences and symposia in the previous two years.  An amount of $30 000 of the Society’s funds, held as part of the funds on Fixed Deposit with the Commonwealth Bank, was reserved to fund the Distinguished Fellows’ address at Annual Conferences over the next five years, with the option of continuing the lecture series for a further five years if considered desirable.

The Society is fortunate in having an investment of sufficient size to buffer it against any downturn in income.  This is essential because the Society is dependent on financial surpluses from the annual conference and the symposium to meet a proportion of its operating costs.  The Society has also committed to organizing the 26^th conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists in 2006 which will require a significant investment by the Society over the next three years.

The continuing healthy financial position of the Society is due to the large surpluses from recent conferences in Adelaide in 2001, Canberra 2002, and Fremantle in 2003 while the surplus from the successful workshop in Canberra in September 2003 (over $18 000) is still to be transferred to the Society’s account.  However in spite of these successful events over recent years, the recruitment of new members through conferences, workshops, and symposia is just matching the loss in members each year and we will need to continue the recruitment effort to maintain our membership base.

Statement of financial performance

The Society had another financially successful year in 2003 with an estimated operating surplus of approximately $42 000.  A copy of the statement of financial performance for 2003 is presented in the next table. 

In spite of our good annual performance and healthy bank balance, the Council continues to be concerned about the underlying shortfall in subscription income relative to annual expenses.  Subscription rates for Australian and New Zealand members were raised for 2003 and Blackwell’s decision to relocate handling of subscriptions to their office in Melbourne during 2003 means that subscriptions from Australian members now attract GST.  It was therefore inappropriate to consider raising membership subscriptions for 2004 at the same time as GST had to be added but rates for future years will have to be considered in relation to the expenses they are required to meet.

Blackwell have indicated that the conditions we negotiated in 2001 to share in the subscription income from the Journal are generous and that they will seek to modify these arrangements when the contract is renewed later this year.

Statement of financial performance, 2003