Papers and presentations from the AARES 2012 Conference
 held in Fremantle, WA from 7-10 February 2012
which were to be available in March 2012
should be uploaded onto the AgEcon Search website
by the end of May 2012.
We apologise for the delay.

President's Column

AARES On-Line Forum launched

The new On-Line Forum, accessible at http://www.aares.org.au/AARESCommunities/, is now ready for members to use.  Either click on the link and log on using your AARES ID and password, or click on the AARES On-Line Forum tab near the top of this page.

Members can subscribe and contribute to any topics they choose or create new items that they think would be of interest.  

In February 2011, when the AARES Council approved the establishment of an Online Forum, the stated purpose was: “…to provide AARES members and others with a web-based facility to exchange information and views on issues of interest to agricultural and resource economists”.  Council asked three members, John O'Connor, Alistair Watson, and David Godden, to establish the Forum and John and Alistair be the forum’s moderators for the time being. 

We do not want to be too prescriptive about the type of material that will appear on the Forum, but it might include:

• Short articles on topics of interest with a more provocative approach so as to encourage debate about controversial issues will be welcome
• Synopsis of research reports when they are being released, along with a link to the report if it is available on the internet.  An electronic copy of such reports can also be attached to posts to the Forum.
• Authors might consider providing a synopsis of their new books and a link to publicity/purchase sites.

We want to keep the tone of discussion civil and constructive, and the moderators will insist on a high standard in regard to ethical professional interaction so that the possibility of personal defamation is avoided.   However, we don’t want to make the Forum boring.  It should be a place where we can thrash out issues and improve our personal understanding of issues.

I appreciate the quick response we have already seen from some members to this initiative and hope to see plenty of discussion on topical issues.

Mal Wegener

AARES-ACIAR Travel Awards to IAAE 2012 Conference in Brazil

Three winners of the AARES-ACIAR Travel Awards to the IAAE Conference in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil this coming August have been announced.

Elizabeth Nolan, from the University of Sydney, had her paper on “Insurance premiums and GM traits”, jointly authored with Paulo Santos also from the University of Sydney, accepted for oral presentation as a contributed paper at the conference.

Also accepted for presentation as a contributed paper was the submission from Jibran Punthakey, a recent graduate from the Bachelor of Resource Economics degree program at the University of Sydney.  His paper “Optimal management of drawdown and saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers” was completed as part of his undergraduate degree, for which he won the AARES Undergraduate prize for New South Wales in 2010.

The submission from Bob Lindner, University of Western Australia on “Economic impacts of ACIAR-funded forestry research on Indonesian pulpwood plantations” was accepted for presentation as a poster.

Each winner has been offered up to $4 000 to support their travel, accommodation, and registration costs for the conference.

We received a strong field of applicants for the IAAE travel award this year.  One applicant withdrew her application because she was supported to attend the conference by CSIRO and by increasing the number of awards beyond what which we originally intended, we could support all applicants who had papers accepted for oral or poster presentation.  

AARES is particularly grateful to the Australian Centre for International Research for their support of these travel awards.  They have now assisted AARES members to attend both the previous IAAE conference in Beijing in 2009 as well this year’s conference in Brazil.