This project will recruit young scholars and fund two 4-year fellowships to undertake and complete the Economics Ph.D. program at North Carolina State University to undertake doctoral research on topics important to an understanding of the functioning of markets in agriculture and the implications and distortions of government intervention through agricultural policies. The project will cover two fellows for four years beginning in academic year 2018/19. The primary areas of research are agriculture and natural resources, government policy, agricultural markets, the political economy of regulation, and marine and fisheries economics. The graduate fellows will be trained through the existing Ph.D. sequence of courses in the Economics Graduate Program and fellows will complete the Ph.D. field in Agricultural Economics. All fellows will be carefully trained in empirical analysis and will complete a Ph.D. minor in Statistics.

The National Needs Proposal proposal outlines a unique, interdisciplinary program of research and graduate education designed to meet the Nation's need for scientists trained in the economic analysis of forest products, natural resources, and agriculture. National resource, energy, and agricultural policy are increasingly intertwined?and scientists trained broadly across disciplines to understand and analyze the forces at work will have high social value. The proposal describes a 49 semester hour program for three Fellows, which combines course work from the Departments of Agricultural Economics, Economics, and Statistics to yield a Ph.D. in Economics (Disciplines M, Agricultural Economics, and L, Economics). The proposal calls for training three Fellows to address Targeted Expertise Shortage Areas in ?Agricultural Management and Economics? and also ?Natural Resources and the Environment.? The program is built upon NCSU's unique history of cooperation between its Economics Graduate Program and U.S. Forest Service economists located near NCSU?s campus. The core faculty assembled for this program represents research leaders in the national needs area. An exceptional group of faculty from the Departments of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Forestry, and Economics has been assembled to participate in the program. The program will be interdisciplinary and as such will make use of extensive research facilities at NCSU. A unique and exciting experiential component of NCSU's Fellowship program in the national need area is a formal internship with the U.S. Forest Service's Economics Research Project at the Southern Research Station in the Research Triangle Park. The internship program enables Fellows to obtain hands-on training while working on critical policy issues alongside academic and government economists and forest scientists.

This proposal outlines a unique, interdisciplinary program of research and graduate education designed to help meet the Nation's need for additional scientists trained in the area of forest products marketing and management. The U.S. forest products industry is facing a number of critical issues, including an array of environmental and legislative concerns. A 49 semester hour program combines course work from the Departments of Agricultural Economics, Forestry, Economics, Management, and Statistics to yield a Ph.D. in economics or a co-major with Ph.D.s in economics and forestry in three years. The program is built upon NCSU's unique history of Economics/Forestry co-major Ph.D. degrees. The core faculty assembled for this program represent research leaders in the national needs area. An exceptional group of faculty from the Departments of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Forestry, and Economics have been assembled to participate in the program. The program will be interdisciplinary and as such will make use of extensive research facilities at NCSU. Collaborating scientists with the U.S. Forest Service and Research Triangle Institute will work with Fellows during their tenure to ensure that their research is relevant to current policy issues in forest products marketing and management. Four dissertation projects, reflecting critical issues in the forest products industry, have been organized for Fellows. These projects include: (1) "Technical Change in Forest Products Industries and Its Effect on the Demand for Forest Products," (2) "Silviculture Alternatives for U.S. Agricultural Producers: Land Use, Management, and Production Issues," (3) "Environmental Protection, Endangered Species Legislation, and Resource Management Issues in the U.S. Forest Products Sector," and (4) "International Trade in Forest Products: Policy and Environmental Issues." Each project will combine the expertise of social scientists from economics and natural scientists from forestry. A notable and exciting component of NCSU's established Fellowship program in the national need area is a formal internship with the U.S. Forest Service's Economics Research Project at the Southern Research Station in the Research Triangle Park. The internship program enables Fellows to obtain hands-on training while working on critical policy issues alongside academic and government economists and forest scientists.

Objectives: 1. To provide a discussion of the literature on the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). 2. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the possible economic impacts of shocks to pollination markets and related agricultural markets, for individual fruit, vegetable, and tree nut crops, and in the aggregate. 3. To estimate the possible impacts of CCD on pollination fees in Washington, Oregon, and California region. 4. To promote the Institutions' and Service's goal of providing policymakers with objective analyses of complex issues.

We propose to convene a meeting titled ?Genetic Manipulation of Pest Species: Ecological and Social Challenges.? The goal of our meeting will be to bring together scientists who are applying transgenic techniques to pest management, and ecological and social groups who may have concerns about the application of genetic pest management. The goal of our meeting will be to formulate a ?Plan of Action? that identifies areas of consensus for use of genetic pest management, and also outlines how concerns about its use may be addressed. We plan for talks that address the science, present case studies, and discuss ecological and social concerns. We are making plans for 60 attendees from universities, public-interest groups, and industry. Of these invitees, we expect at least 25 to have roles in speaking, panel discussions, or moderating roundtable discussions. This proposal is for the same symposium NCBT provided partial funding, but which we had to postpone. In section 12 of our proposal, we provide an update that details how we have improved our position with more funding and commitments from speakers. We also discuss how genetic pest management has become even more prominent since our first submission and how this symposium is operating in parallel to other efforts that involve NC State and triangle scientists. Most importantly, NCBC?s support would provide visible seed money that would increase the prospects of a $3million training grant on genetic pest management.