Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Inc. Registered No. A S

Transcription

1 Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Inc. Registered No. A S Annual General Meeting Coronet and Remarkables Room, Rydges Lakeland Resort, Queenstown Thursday 15 February :00 5:30 p.m. 1. Apologies: Quentin Grafton, Julian Alston, Tony Chisholm, Ross Cullen and Deb Peterson 2. Confirmation of minutes from previous minutes The minutes of the Annual General Meeting on 9 February 2006 were tabled. Motion: Bob Dumsday moved that the minutes of the previous meeting be accepted. Ross Kingwell seconded and all were in favour. Some of the businesses arising from the previous minutes were: Tennille Graham had stepped down in the beginning of 2006 and Mary- Ann Franco-Dixon was invited by the Council to be the Secretary around July; and Lili Pechey resigned as the Manager of Promotions and Development due to work commitments. Gerri Gentle took over the position for the rest of the year. 3. Office bearers reports 3.1 President s report John Mullen tabled and presented the President s Report (Attachment 2). John noted that the Society is in a sound position with membership of around 600 and total asset of $300,000. Key parameters associated with the Journal, such as the impact factor, the number of downloads and the number of library subscriptions, are all up. 1

2 Federal Council is endeavouring to maintain membership subscriptions and conference registration fees at current levels. The Council is focussing on services that will prove attractive to young professionals and hence protect our membership base and is prepared to use some of the Society s assets towards this end. John noted that the Society incurred a substantial cash deficit during 2006 as shown in this year s financial statements. The explanation for this is the change in how Blackwell provided us with the income from AJARE. Instead of the previous practice of receiving income in advance, in 2006 it was decided that income is to be received in arrears and hence no income from Blackwell was recorded in It is a cash flow anomaly not representative of the underlying strength of our financial position. Major activities during 2007 and highlights of the past year included the following: 50 th Annual Conference of Society at Manly; The IAAE Conference on the Gold Coast, August 12 18; New Editors for AJARE - Tom Kompas, Quentin Grafton and Jeff Bennett as editors for the issues of the Journal; Digitising the Australian Journal of Agricultural Economic (AJAE) and the Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics (RMAE) and make them available on the web; Website development led by Bob Farquharson; The Society has recently reached an agreement with All Occasions Management to be our preferred Conference Organiser for the next three years; New prizes for the Quality of Communication Award (for superior communication of concepts or knowledge in agricultural and resource economics); the Quality of Research Discovery Award (for significant contribution to the field of knowledge in agricultural and resource economics); and Heading East Heading West Awards. Motion: Rod Forbes moved that the President s Report be accepted. Bryan Bendall seconded and all were in favour. 3.2 Secretary s report Mary-Ann Franco-Dixon tabled and presented the Secretary s Report (Attachment 3). The report contained information about the structure and activities of the Council during the year, committee membership, activities of the branches, prize winners, fellowship winners and Distinguished Fellows for

3 Motion: Jeff Bennett moved that the Secretary s Report be accepted. Rod Forbes seconded and all were in favour. 3.3 Treasurer s report Glenn Ronan tabled and presented the Treasurer s Report. A summary of the report is as follows. Glenn Ronan continues to be the Federal Treasurer during the year after the transition to a new financial management team was accomplished during AARES has moved to an e-bookkeeping system, QuickBooks, and this system has been used by Glenn and Annie Hurst since October Thanks were extended by Glenn to Annie Hurst, Grant Pearce and John Mullen. The financial position of the Society shows that it traded in surplus during 2006 and net assets have increased. The surplus was $27, and continues a trend of surpluses since Net assets of AARES have increased to $339, at the end of Motion: Lili Pechey moved that the Treasurer s Report be accepted. Mal Wegener seconded and all were in favour. 3.4 Manager Promotion and Development s report Gerri Gentle, Manager Promotion and Development, was unable to attend the conference and thus no report was tabled. 3.5 AJARE Editor s report Bob Linder tabled and presented the AJARE Editors report (Attachment 5) Bob noted that the flow of submissions is continuing at a favourable rate. In 2005 the journal received 120 submissions and in submissions were received. Compared with earlier years AJARE received an enhanced number of submissions in Manuscript Central Electronic Editorial and management system had been used to generate some summary statistics. Bob signalled that a new editorial team would be required once sufficient papers have been accepted for volume 51. In June 2006, the 2005 impact factors of all journals were released and showed AJARE's impact factor had more than doubled, rising 117% to 0.867, up from 0.4 in In addition, the journal raised its rank in the economics subject category from 117/172 to 54/117. The agricultural economics and policy category had been removed for the 2005 impact factor listings, but AJARE was only 5 ranks below the 3

4 American Journal of Agricultural Economics in the general economics category. The AARES Council has accepted a recommendation for a new editorial team based at the Australian National University: Jeff Bennett, Tom Kompas and Quentin Grafton. Preliminary discussions are underway between the old and new editorial teams about transition arrangements for early 2007 regarding the management of existing and new submissions to AJARE. The new editors will be responsible for Volumes Motion: Garry Griffith moved that the AJARE Editors Report be accepted. Vic Wright seconded and all were in favour. Motion: Carolyn Tanner moved to thank Bob Lindner, Ross Kingwell and David Pannell as the outgoing AJARE editors. Peter Waugh seconded and all were in favour. 3.6 Connections Editors report Bill Malcolm tabled and presented a report on Connections (Attachment 6). Connections is an extension publication jointly provided by AARES and University of Melbourne Faculty of Agriculture and Food Systems. A dozen articles were published in Connections in AARES Best Connections Article started in 2005 continues. Motion: Gavin Dwyer moved that the Connections Editors Report be accepted. Bob Lindner seconded and all were in favour. 4. Awards 4.1 Undergraduate prize winners: ACT: Ben McNair of Australian National University New England: Mary Philp of University of New England New South Wales: Katarina Nossal of University of Sydney New Zealand: Mark Haywood of Lincoln University Queensland: Tran Thu-Trang of University of Queensland South Australia: Rachel England of University of Adelaide Victoria: Brad Knight of the University of Melbourne Western Australia: Nathan Cattle of University of Western Australia 4

5 4.2 Masters Prize winner Francis Herbert D Emden, of the University of Western Australia for his thesis Adoption of Conservation Tillage: An Application of Duration Analysis 4.3 PhD Prize winner: Jean-Marc Kutschuksian, of the University of Sydney for his thesis A Theoretical Analysis of Voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility. 4.4 Prize for the Best Article in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics: Julian Alston, Joseph Balagtas, Henrich Brunke and Dan Summer for the article Supply and Demand for Commodity Components: Implications of Free Trade Versus the AUSFTA for the US Dairy Industry. 4.5 AARES /AAEA Young Professionals Exchange Travel Award - Heading South Qiuqiong Huang 4.6 AARES /AAEA Young Professionals Exchange Travel Award - Heading North Stuart Mounter 4.7 Distinguished Fellows Phil Pardey and Carolyn Tanner 4.8 Distinguished Life Member There were no nominations for Distinguished Life Members. 4.9 Quality of Research Discovery Award Kym Anderson and Will Martin for their publication Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda 4.10 Quality of Communication Award Phil Pardey, Julian Alston and Roley Piggott for their publication Agricultural R&D Policy in the Developing World: Too Little, Too Late? 5

6 4.11 Prize for the Best Article in the Connections David Pannell 5. Report from the International Association of Agricultural Economists Malcolm Wegener provided a verbal report. The organisers were pleased with the outcome of the conference. Seventy percent of the attendees were from the developed countries while 30 percent were from the developing countries. There were 284 attendees to the pre-conference Policy Workshops, 247 stayed to attend the rest of the conference and 37 did not attend the main conference. There were 360 contributed paper presentations out of 856 submitted papers and 356 poster papers (including 305 re-designated contributed paper submissions) as well as 44 symposia. In addition, 14 plenary papers were presented at the main conference as well as a total of 69 invited presentations at the five pre-conference workshops. 6. Election of office bearers President Allan Rae Assumed office automatically President Elect Chris O Donnell Only one nomination. Secretary Mary Ann Franco-Dixon Nom: Gavan Dwyer Sec: Lin Crase Elected unopposed Treasurer Glenn Ronan Nom: Bob Farquharson Sec: Jeff Bennett Elected unopposed Manager Promotion and Development Editors of AJARE 7. Any other business Incumbent was to be contacted Jeff Bennett Tom Kompas Quentin Grafton Nom: Sec: Nom: Chris O Donnel Sec: Bob Lindner Elected unopposed Jeff Bennett moved a vote of thanks to John Mullen for his successful efforts as AARES President during Lili Pechey and Mary Ann Franco-Dixon seconded and all were in favour. The Annual General Meeting closed at 5.45 pm. 6