2016 Annual Report

Programs Accomplished in 2016

Cochran Program for Brazil: Sourcing Food Service Products from the United States

In May, NCFAP hosted the USDA Cochran Program for seven participants from Brazil.  The delegation attended the National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago, IL, as well as meetings with producers, organizations, and agencies in Northern CA.  They learned about the food service industry, including distribution to restaurants and through food retail stores. Each of the members of the delegation had an opportunity to obtain information about their particular segment of the market for food service products.

Cochran Program for Thailand: US Health and Wellness Food Products Importing and Marketing

In March, NCFAP hosted the USDA Cochran program for six participants from Thailand. The delegation attended the National Products Expo West in Los Angeles, CA, as well as meeting with producers, organizations, and agencies in Northern CA, where they were provided with direct access to US health and wellness foods products, as well as import and export processes for organic agriculture and other labels describing healthy foods.

2017 Pet Ownership and Demographics Survey
NCFAP worked last year to develop a national survey for the AVMA which would include 50,000 households. The work was joint with the Statistics Department at ISU who designed the sampling strategy.  The questionnaire was finished in December of 2016.  The survey will go into the field in January of 2017 and be completed by March of 2017.  In addition, we completed surveys of two metro market areas (Philadelphia and Los Angeles).  These markets included 1,000 households each and were used to verify the methods for the 50,000 household survey, as well as to give an answer to the question about how the survey would be used  for local market areas. Finally, in 2016 we completed a metro market survey for the Raleigh Durham area.  This survey was analyzed for correspondence with actual veterinary records for the households in question.  This data was used to adjust the 50,000 major survey and to estimate price and income elasticities of demand.

Cooperative Agreement with USDA/OCE
The NCFAP cooperative agreement with USDA/OCE was renewed again this year for 2016/2017. For the current year we plan to complete two new papers: “An Analysis of the World Market Impacts of the Biofuel Restrictions of the EU,” and “An Analysis of the Budget Impacts of the Biofuel Restrictions for the EU Consumer Economics.” Last year we completed two additional research projects: “A Graphical Analysis of the EU Restrictions with Price Linkages to the World Market with EU Price Linkages to the this Market” and “An Analysis of the Possible Gains from Arbitrage with the World and EU Markets.” The first of these papers is under review by the Southern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. The second is in modification before sending it to the journal. In addition, we have three other papers from previous work that are either revised and resubmitted based on reviews or are returning to us for revisions and resubmission.

Federal Grant Analysis Project with America Institutes for Research
Late year NCFAP worked on a food safety book under contract with the Cambridge Press. The book is the first of the major works utilizing “Big Data” for an analysis of the impacts of federal grants from USDA, HHS and NSF to universities for downstream implications for the faculty, graduate students, and post docs who are employed by the funds for these grants. The system which we have developed is called UMETRICS, and will soon be adopted by all major universities in the US.  Issues regarding whether or not graduates and post docs take positions in the food safety industry, and if salaries of food safety versus other graduate students and post docs (from related fields) are the same or different. Patents and dissertations produced are being analyzed.

AgroInvest Project in Ukraine
During 2016 NCFAP was contacted by the CHEMONICS winner of a major grant for Ukraine to be collaborators with them. We are just now working out the details of our cooperation.  We expect to have a major role in this grant which is coming from USAID. The theme is to assist the Ukraine in developing a greater influence on agricultural and rural development policy.

Agricultural Conversions Project
The agricultural conversions project is at last in the hands of faculty at the University of California Davis. The grant of $250,000 to support this research was developed by NCFAP staff.  Other contributors were the Family Farms Group (at $300,000) and Biogenesis which made the machine. One of the unique features of this project is the acquisition of a special machine which can determine the N, P, and K contributions from the animal manure but as well the greenhouse gas implications.  We expect that next year the mechanism will be moved to a private firm for large scale production. Presently this mechanism is the only system available for transforming animal manure to clean fertilizer.

Agricultural Sector Model for Kazakhstan
This past year NCFAP participated in a FAO funded project in Kazakhstan that resulted in the preparation of two proposals: one for an agricultural sector model and one for a National 4-H Program. The ag sector model will permit Kazakhstan to project their grain and other livestock markets in isolation or in the context of world markets. In the latter case, we have permission for the Kazakh model to hook up to FAPRI models that now represent 33 countries in the annual world market. This will give the Kazakh planners and private firms an opportunity to understand the benefits of engaging in world markets.  Both proposals are for three years and would begin next year.

Development and Review of a Missouri/Russian Education Proposal
NCFAP contracted to review a University of Missouri proposal for an educational program in Russia. Our contribution was to alert the Missouri staff to issues related to food security.  Their plan was to link this issue to agricultural production and distribution.

Website 
The NCFAP.org website was updated this past year.  It was a tremendous undertaking, as the website contains over 7,000 files.