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The 25 Year History of FAPRI-MU In 1979, Abner Womack joined the faculty of the University of Missouri under department chair Bruce Bullock, and William (Willi) Meyers joined the faculty at Iowa State University. Stan Johnson was an established faculty member within the Department of Economics and the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri. Stan Johnson had been instrumental in convincing Abner Womack to come to Missouri. By 1981 the trio of Stan Johnson, Abner Womack and Willi Meyers had secured funding from the Iowa Corn Growers to begin to rebuild the agricultural economic dynamic commodity modeling system that had been discontinued in 1979 by USDA. In January 1981 Frank Joseph (Joe) Trujillo became the first student researcher hired to specifically work on this modeling system at the University of Missouri. The following month, another student researcher, Robert (Bob) Young, II was hired to work on the modeling system as well. By November 1983 a formal proposal was put forth to the University of Missouri and Iowa State University to establish the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). This joint institute was established in July 1984 between the Center for National Food and Agricultural Policy (CNFAP) at the University of Missouri, within the Department of Agricultural Economics and the Center for Trade and Agricultural Policy (CTAP) at Iowa State University. In December 1983 the first federally appropriated money was designated for FAPRI in the amount of $450,000 to begin to provide assistance and evaluation of US agricultural and food policies for the US Congress. US Senator Thomas (Tom) Eagleton was noted as instrumental in providing support for the appropriation. Approximately half of the funding was designated for the University of Missouri and half was designated for Iowa State University. The primary focus for the beginning FAPRI models was the US crop sector, including markets for wheat, feed grains, soybeans and soybean products. Primary supply and demand components were modeled with systems of equations solving for an equilibrium price. Effects of the livestock industry and world markets were captured in reduced form equations. Mainframe computer systems available at the University of Missouri and punch cards were used to input data and equations to obtain a 10-year outlook. FAPRI’s visibility increased with analysis performed for the 1985 Farm Bill. A peer review component was added to the FAPRI annual baseline modeling process in the late 1980s to provide an opportunity for economists at other universities and within government agencies such as USDA to discuss and debate FAPRI’s preliminary 10-year baseline outlook. Following this peer review session, FAPRI would work to make model revisions before completion of the final 10-year baseline outlook. The baseline process established by FAPRI in the 1980s is still utilized today.  By 1986 Abner Womack and Jon Brandt were serving as co-directors at Missouri with Stan Johnson and Willi Meyers filling the same roles at Iowa State University. In 1986, Bob Young completed his PhD in Agricultural Economics and by March 1987 he was serving as the chief economist for the Senate Agriculture Committee in Washington, DC. With Bob Young’s departure, Carl (Gregg) Suhler, a former White House Fellow, was hired by FAPRI-MU to begin to develop a better understanding of the Washington policy process. In addition, Gregg Suhler worked with Abner Womack to begin to educate Senate and House members and their staff about the ability of FAPRI-MU’s modeling system and analysts to provide decision support tools beneficial to the policy process. By the fall of 1987 Scott Brown had joined FAPRI-MU at the University of Missouri as a graduate student. In the fall of 1989 Abner Womack began teaching a freshman honors course at the University of Missouri entitled The Washington Process on Agricultural Policy. In addition to educating students, Abner Womack had the goal, as expressed to students in the class, of attracting bright, young students to work on a part-time basis with FAPRI-MU with the hopes of beginning to create longer-term researchers. FAPRI-MU continued to support master’s and doctoral graduate students, economists and professional staff to assist in day-to-day operations. Full-time staff accounted for ten or fewer individuals, and students helped with research, publication creation and other assistance as needed. Under the guidance of Jon Brandt, FAPRI-MU began to look at the regional aspects of US agriculture and how FAPRI-MU could better integrate its US policy impacts into a regional system. Discussions began with Ron Knutson, Ed Smith and James Richardson at the Agricultural and Food Policy Center (AFPC) at Texas A&M University in 1988 to begin to develop a formal linkage between FAPRI-MU’s US commodity modeling system and regionalized models to be developed using AFPC’s Farm Level Income and Policy Simulation Model (FLIPSIM). FAPRI-MU was able to serve a vital role in providing analysis used during discussions and debates leading up to passage of the 1990 Farm Bill. In the 1990s, FAPRI-MU looked toward additional research opportunities and other funding sources. In 1991, Bob Young returned to the University of Missouri to assume the role of FAPRI-MU co-director and Pat Westhoff left the FAPRI unit at Iowa State to serve as the chief economist for the Senate Agriculture Committee in the role vacated by Bob Young. Bob Young worked to further the regionalized farm efforts, which came to be known as representative farms with AFPC, to further FAPRI-MU’s dairy model working with Scott Brown and to infuse his Washington, DC experiences related to the policy process into FAPRI-MU. The increased globalization of agriculture also affected FAPRI-MU’s work. In 1986, the 8-year long Uruguay Round of international trade negotiations began, eventually leading to the agreement that created the World Trade Organization (WTO). Willi Meyers and the rest of the team at FAPRI at Iowa State developed regional and country models to capture the supply, demand and trade impacts on international and US agriculture of the types of policy changes that would be required by a WTO agreement. By 1994, FAPRI-MU had a project with JIRCAS in Japan had been established as a result of efforts by Gregg Suhler and Abner Womack. In the early 1990s, University of Missouri Curator James (Jim) McHugh began working with FAPRI at Missouri to develop a relationship with Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority in Ireland. Teagasc was concerned about the impact of Common Agricultural Policy reform and WTO on Irish agriculture and the modeling system and policy process being used by FAPRI-MU was appealing. In 1997, the FAPRI-Ireland Partnership was established linking Teagasc, FAPRI-MU at Missouri and five Irish universities. Bob Young provided leadership in Ireland to ensure the success of this emerging project. Continuing to work with cutting edge computer technology, FAPRI-MU was able to reallocate resources that had been used less than 10-years earlier to buy mainframe computer time from the University to desktop technology and additional researchers to develop models. In 1993, Dan Cassidy returned to FAPRI-MU from the Missouri Department of Agriculture and was beginning to look for ways to use FAPRI-MU’s modeling system and modeling processes to address environmental and conservation policy impacts and furthering FAPRI-MU’s efforts to provide information to and for the state of Missouri. In December 1994 Scott Brown and Gary Adams completed their doctoral degrees at the University. The research they developed for their dissertations would represent the culmination of FAPRI-MUs full transfer of the US crops, livestock and dairy models into an integrated system that could be solved using desktop computers. In 1996 Pat Westhoff left Washington, DC and came to FAPRI-MU at Missouri to begin to work on an international policy thrust and Stan Johnson’s formal role as a co-director for FAPRI-MU ended as he assumed the position as vice provost for extension at Iowa State University. In 2003 Bob Young left FAPRI-MU to assume a leadership position as chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington, DC. Willi Meyers came to FAPRI-MU at Missouri in 2003 to serve as co-director, Willi had worked at the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for 3-years while on leave from FAPRI at Iowa State University from 1999 to 2002. By 2007 the environmental thrust for FAPRI-MU was shifted to other areas of the University of Missouri. FAPRI-MU still works with a consortium of universities including the joint institute at Iowa State University, AFPC at Texas A&M, Texas Tech University, the University of Arkansas, Arizona State University and the University of Nevada – Reno. No governing body, council, or advisory board coordinates these joint research efforts and all researchers report directly to their own supporting university. The support of FAPRI-MU on Capitol Hill for the past 25-years, from both Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate is representative of the unbiased focus that FAPRI-MU has tried to maintain since its inception. FAPRI-MU was able to secure grant funding through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin to look at water quality issues in Missouri watersheds and to develop a farm level approach to analyzing agricultural and environmental policy impacts. Russ Mills came to FAPRI-MU in 1996 after retiring from the Natural Resources Conservation Service to work to develop an environmental policy thrust within FAPRI-MU. By 1997 FAPRI-MU received funding and began work on the first environmental policy project with the EPA entitled the Missouri Watershed Water Quality Initiative. This 1997 initiative was supported by five annual appropriations from 1998 to 2002. Russ Mills left FAPRI-MU in 2000 and Verel Benson assumed leadership of the environmental thrust in 1999. In addition to Russ Mills and Verel Benson, nine additional researchers worked at FAPRI-MU on this EPA initiative. In 2003 Bob Young left FAPRI-MU to assume a leadership position as chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington, DC. Willi Meyers came to FAPRI-MU at Missouri in 2003 to serve as co-director, Willi had worked at the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for 3-years while on leave from FAPRI at Iowa State University from 1999 to 2002. By 2007 the environmental thrust for FAPRI-MU was shifted to other areas of the University of Missouri. FAPRI-MU still works with a consortium of universities including the joint institute at Iowa State University, AFPC at Texas A&M, Texas Tech University, the University of Arkansas, Arizona State University and the University of Nevada – Reno. No governing body, council, or advisory board coordinates these joint research efforts and all researchers report directly to their own supporting university. The support of FAPRI-MU on Capitol Hill for the past 25-years, from both Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate is indicative of the unbiased focus that FAPRI-MU has tried to maintain since its inception. In 2009, FAPRI-MU has a wide range of ongoing projects. Annual baseline projections and policy work for Congress continue to be a core activity. FAPRI-MU researchers are engaged in several projects with USDA and other federal agencies, as well as international projects in Ireland, the United Kingdom, South Korea, South Africa and Mexico. FAPRI-MU, or to be specific, the Center for National Food and Agricultural Policy (CNFAP), was one of over 131 listed centers within the University of Missouri in 2006 and 2007 according to information provided during FAPRI-MU’s 5-year academic review that occurred in April 2008. Centers like FAPRI-MU are not considered common in this group of 131 with only four or five other centers matching FAPRI-MU in terms of size, structure and scope of operation. FAPRI-MU leadership and researchers work actively within the Department of Agricultural Economics within the Division of Applied Social Sciences (DASS) with six individuals serving dual appointments as FAPRI-MU employees and faculty within the Department of Agricultural Economics. These faculty and other FAPRI-MU researchers annually teach six or seven undergraduate and graduate courses offered through the Department. Academic activities undertaken by FAPRI-MU researchers also include serving on master’s and doctoral student committees, making presentations at academic conferences, writing and reviewing academic papers, and providing service in professional associations. For more details regarding the current, hard-working FAPRI-MU team, including Julian Binfield, Melvin Brees, Scott Brown, Linda Careaga, Brent Carpenter, Duane Dailey, Katie Dudley, Scott Gerlt, Darlene Kruse, Daniel Madison, Seth Meyer, Willi Meyers, Wyatt Thompson, Pat Westhoff, Lori Wilcox, Abner Womack, and Peter Zimmel, please follow the link below. In addition, undergraduate and graduate students continue to provide valuable research and day-to-day support that has been critical for the growth and continuity of FAPRI-MU. These students include Jarrett Whistance, D. J. Donahue, Kateryna Goychuk, Woo Jin Song, Joe Tvrdy, Zach Kinne, Shane Kinne, Samantha Wilkerson, Jason Reichert, Elizabeth Miles, Kyndall Ogle and Jillian Yoder. Staff Directory *Excerpts taken with written permission from Wilcox, L. 2009. Educational Entrepreneurism in Higher Education: A Comparative Case Study of Two Academic Centers within One Land-Grant University. Copyrighted 2009.
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