Annually the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) holds a agribusiness case study competition for M.S. and Ph.D. students at their national meetings. This year six teams competed at the meetings in Milwaukee, WI in late July. University of Arkansas’ team consisting of M.S. students Brandon McFadden, Katherine McGraw and Sandra Popova won first place. Second and third place went to the Universities of Alberta and Georgia respectively. Other schools participating were Purdue, Illinois and Clemson. This marks the fourth year in a row that the University of Arkansas has ranked in the top three but the first year we are #1. The team advisors, Michael Thomsen and Michael Popp want to express our thanks to the department for helpful comments and financial support.

Congratulations to Ashley Jones! Ashley, a May 2009 graduate, finished second place in the Undergraduate Paper Competition during the AAEA meeting. Her paper, "Developing Enterprise Budgets for Sustainable School Gardens: Service Learning in a Global Context" was the topic of her honors thesis.

Aiko Landerito presented the following paper at the AAEA meetings: "Analyzing FSA Direct Loan Borrower Payback Histories: Predictors of Financial Improvement and Loan Servicing Action", authored by A.O. Landerito, B.L. Dixon, B.L. Ahrendsen, S.J. Hamm and D.M. Danforth.