Organized Symposium sessions highlight ideas or works-in-progress on a topic involving cooperative or competing efforts by two or more panelists. Symposia may involve panel discussions of prepared questions, debates, roundtable meetings, or other formats. Formal paper presentations are discouraged, nonetheless if such presentations are proposed, the organizer should explain how they will fit into a tightly coherent theme. At least half of the session time will be reserved for discussion among the panelists and between the panelists and the audience. Symposia may offer discussions of policy issues, research methods, emerging research results, teaching or outreach topics, issues in professional organization, or other matters.
Organized Symposia are concurrent sessions. Each concurrent session is 90 minutes in duration. Other concurrent sessions include, Selected Paper Sessions, Lightning Sessions, Organized Symposia, Track Sessions, Invited Paper Sessions, and Invited Case Study Sessions.
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Researchers from USDA-ERS, Cornell University, and Argonne National Laboratory jointly organize the session focused on sustainability issues at the FEW nexus. The objectives is to identify the gap areas and challenges in integrated systems modeling of food-energy-water nexus, examine methodologies to model the integrated food systems and develop action plans to pursue collaborative research opportunities.
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Potential large farm profits from the burgeoning demand of hemp products are inducing very rapid increases in the US production of hemp. This session discusses the potential prospects, pitfalls, and economic sustainability of the emerging trends in demand, supply, regulation, and competition in the U.S. hemp industry, with particular implications for farmers.
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The retail food environment refers to the types and locations of stores and foodservice outlets, the types and variety of foods available, and the relative prices of foods in a geographic area. Availability, pricing, and access to food influences the nutritional quality and quantity of foods purchased by consumers and thus affects weight and health status of individuals. Measures of the retail food environment can be used to analyze the effects on consumer choices and thus inform potential interventions to improve the healthiness of foods consumed. The papers in this session explore methods of defining and measuring the retail food environment and present results of analyses of its effects.
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Strategically placed cellulosic biofuel crops in agricultural landscape can play a significant role in supporting bioeconomy, climate mitigation, and generate a number of ecosystem services. An important aspect of such bioenergy landscape is to identify the in-field variability in environmental attributes and selectively decide the crop(s) and cultivation practices accordingly. Incorporation of perennial bioenergy crops in the marginal land, edge of the field, and in riparian area; cultivating cover crops; selection of type, quantity, and timing of in-field application of nitrogenous fertilizers; and low or no tillage lead to increased supply of food and biomass to support bioeconomy as well as enhance ecosystem services. We propose to present four case studies that demonstrate the economic and environmental implications of aforementioned bioenergy systems in the U.S.
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The long-term economic viability of growing and marketing specialty crops in the U.S. is jeopardized by a number of challenges. Those challenges include the surge of imports in recent years, increasing regulations and their associated, the tightening of labor supply, the impact of pests and disease, and the reduction in infrastructure. Therefore, we propose to hold an open dialog to discuss such unique challenges.
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The ubiquity of social media has created both opportunities and challenges for businesses and societies. For product brands, ideas, or campaigns to gain traction on social media platforms, they need to capture attention. This is often accomplished by creating and disseminating compelling information, even disinformation, on these platforms. This session brings together experts and practitioners in behavioral economics, political economics, psychology, and data analysis to discuss the influence of disinformation social media on perceptions of modern agriculture. Additionally, we explore, through case studies and study results, how data can help us to better understand how people activate in social media spaces and how they perceive risk.
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The symposium will feature brief paper presentations (approximately five minutes each) preceded by a brief introductory remarks by one of the symposium organizers, who will also serve as the moderator. The remainder of the session will be left for panel discussion, answering questions, and discussion with all attendees.
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African farming systems are the least mechanized across all continents - they continue to be characterized by the use of the hoe and the cutlass, resulting in low productivity of labor. In recent years, many African governments have found new interest in promoting agricultural mechanization, mostly by importing tractors and distributing them at subsidized rates to farmers. These new mechanization efforts are taking place in a “vacuum” of empirical research since agricultural and development economists have not paid much attention to agricultural mechanization after the failure of the state-led mechanization programs that were widespread in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, major open research questions still need to be addressed in order to find ways of mechanization that are sustainable from and economic, social and environmental perspective.
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A panel discussion of the role of regional and rural development economists in promoting better public policies to support rural economic growth and vitality. The panelists provide four unique perspectives by researchers at various stages of their careers and with a wide-range of experiences. Together, the presentations and discussion will identify the challenges and barriers to disseminating research beyond academia and possible ways to overcome these challenges.
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Agricultural economics graduates currently have abundant job opportunities and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find agricultural economics MS or PhD graduates who understand agricultural production and the various institutions that make up the U.S. agricultural sector. This understanding is particularly important for some federal government and Extension faculty positions. This symposium will discuss these challenges and initiate an effort to seek potential solutions that would create the appropriate incentives to repopulate and sustain the supply chain. A desired outcome would be the development of a group or groups who would work on innovative solutions to address the challenges identified.
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Digital agriculture is the use of new and advanced technologies to enable farmers and other stakeholders within the agricultural value chain to increase production, improve efficiency of food supply chain, enhance wellbeing of farmers and consumers, and spread the social benefits from new technologies and value chain efficiency.
The proposed symposium will address the current status and challenges of the adoption of digital agriculture in China as well as its impacts on new business models, rural household income, rural-urban income inequality, and on incumbent agriculture sector and firms.
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The session will provide mentoring on topics critical for professional success in research, teaching and extension careers to early career faculty in applied economics departments. Presenters will discuss research expectations in an agricultural and applied economics department and strategies for success. The importance of grant funding as well as approaches for effective time management, networking and maintaining work-life balance will be discussed. The session will be interactive and sufficient time will be provided to engage participants in sharing their experiences, concerns and best practices.
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This session is designed to showcase the talent of job market candidates in agricultural and applied economics. In the current pandemic and increasing uncertain circumstance , it has become difficult for job market candidates to present their work and practice their job market talk, when they are on the market. This session seeks to address this and to give students an opportunity to present at the 2020 AAEA meetings. We propose an innovative session format for this session: a series of lightning presentations, presented by graduate students who will be on the 2020-2021 job market.
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According to IPCC, slightly over a quarter of the GHG emissions come from agriculture, broadly defined to include forestry, fisheries and livestock and land use changes. Climate change also has profound impacts on agriculture, from higher temperatures, variable rainfall, floods and droughts, loss of agricultural land. Research on adaption to climate change is relatively new and limited. In this session three papers, one on Sub-Saharan Africa, one on Asia and one covering both continents will present results of climate change outcomes and implications for research and policy.
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