CONTENTS

Domestic Impacts of the Walnut Marketing Board's Marketing Programs

NEC-63 Call for Papers Oct. 2002 in Washington DC

Director’s Corner

Next Meeting

NEC-63 Fall 2002 October 21-22, 2002 Hotel Monaco 700 F. Street, NW Washington, DC 20004 "Distribution of Benefits and Costs of Commodity Checkoff Programs"

NEC-63 Call for Papers for October 21-22, 2002
Washington, DC Conference

NEC-63, the regional research project on commodity checkoff programs, is sponsoring a conference in Washington, D.C. on October 21-22, 2002. The theme of the conference is the “Distribution of Benefits and Costs of Commodity Checkoff Programs.” NEC-63 is currently soliciting abstracts for papers to be presented at this conference.

The conference will explore distributional issues on the costs and benefits of commodity checkoff programs. The following are examples of issues to be addressed at this conference. How are the costs and benefits of checkoff programs distributed across producers with differing characteristics such as size and location? How are the costs and benefits of these programs distributed throughout the marketing channel from producer to the consumer? What is the optimal distribution of checkoff activities such as advertising, promotion, and research? What is the incidence of these programs among exporters and importers in international markets when trade is involved? Accepted papers will be presented at this conference and published in Agribusiness: An International Journal.

Individuals interested in presenting a paper should send a 500 word abstract to Harry M. Kaiser by May 30, 2002. If the abstract is accepted, a complete version of the paper will be due by mid-October 2002 just prior to the conference. The abstract should be e-mailed to Dr. Kaiser at the following address: hmk2@cornell.edu.