Jodi Frederick
(509) 335-6653
jfrederick@wsu.edu

Wahl Elected Chairman of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium

PULLMAN, Wash. – Dr. Thomas I. Wahl, director of the WSU IMPACT Center, has been elected Chair of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.

“Tom brought a good dimension to IATRC because of his experience in Asia,” said past IATRC Chairman David Blanford, a professor at Pennsylvania State University. “The Consortium is also glad that Washington State University has become the new home of IATRC; this will be important to the consortium’s future.”

Blanford said one of the key issues Wahl will have to address as chairman for 2005 is getting more information about IATRC research to key publics and policy makers. In a recent evaluation of IATRC, reviewers noted that the number of working papers and publications produced by IATRC has declined in recent years; the executive committee is looking for ways to turn this trend around.

In addition, as chairman Wahl is hoping to increase communication and exchange of ideas between IATRC members by setting up an on-line forum for members to discuss key issues in agricultural trade and research.

Praveen Dixit, Economic Research Service Branch Chief at the USDA and past member of the executive committee, said the most important thing Wahl can do as chairman in the coming year is prepare IATRC for the next decade.
“People are changing, issues are changing and research is changing,” Dixit said. “IATRC needs to prepare for a new generation of ideas and research.”
Dixit said that as a member of IATRC since the early 1990s, Wahl has worked on a set of issues that is crucial to the future of IATRC.
The main objective of IATRC is to enhance the quality and relevance of international agricultural trade research and policy analysis by encouraging collaborative research and communication among trade researchers, analysts, government agencies and the private sector. IATRC currently has more than 180 members from 25 countries.

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