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Perspective: Agricultural Scholar Reflects on His Time at AES
Matthew Melchor is a 2024 Farm Foundation Agricultural Scholar and second-year master’s student at Kansas State University studying agricultural economics. This Perspective post reflects his experience of attending the 98th annual conference of the Agricultural Economics Society in Edinburgh with his program cohort.
The Agricultural Economics Society meeting was a great international conference experience for both networking and presentations by academics from Europe and beyond. The topics covered at the conference ranged across all fields of agriculture, from production agriculture and artificial intelligence to consumer preferences and food insecurity. The symposiums and plenary sessions offered insights into publishing in journals, informing policy, and solutions to the current issues in the food system, with energetic question-and-answer sessions after each presentation to dive deeper into the topics with the selected presenters.
Having solely researched production livestock economics in the United States, learning of issues in other sectors within agricultural economics, through presentations of analysis completed by academics, introduced me to new modeling systems and varying perspectives on global issues. Listening to this research has already changed my perspective on my future work in livestock economics, including who I believe my work will affect.
In addition to the conference, we had the opportunity to have dinner with Dr. Spiro Stefanou, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, and David Swales and Sarah Baker, both from the UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. It was a pleasure meeting them, hearing the challenges and issues they face with regards to the context of the United Kingdom and how government handles them: clearly very different to the United States. As part of the conference schedule, we also had a traditional Scottish dinner with haggis served as one of the courses during the meal. We ended the evening by learning some traditional Scottish dances from a Ceilidh band.
After the conference, we had the opportunity to visit two separate livestock farms in Scotland. First, we traveled south to see Upper Nisbet Farm and met Robert Neill. As a livestock economist, seeing the cow-calf operation and the technology they employ to more efficiently weigh, vaccinate, and treat animals was impressive. Mr. Neill took the time to answer any questions we had about livestock production in general, particularly the differences between the United Kingdom and the United States. I thoroughly enjoyed the access he provided to see first-hand how ranchers operate in the UK. Then we returned to Edinburgh to visit Scotland Rural College’s (SRUC) Easter Howgate Beef and Sheep Research Center. This research farm focuses on collecting, measuring, and upcycling methane emissions in cattle, using the latest technology available to only a few farms in the world. I enjoyed seeing first-hand the state-of-the-art facilities and the equipment that SRUC has access to and the ongoing research they are working on.
The 2024 Agricultural Economics Society meeting was an incredible experience. I look forward to attending future AES conferences and would like to thank the Agricultural Economics Society for hosting us!