Horticulture and Marine Economics

1. Marine fisheries economics (since 1990) – Develop economic impact models, estimate contributions of the seafood industry by major seafood species, and monitor selected seafood species' dockside, wholesale, and retail prices.

2. Marine aquaculture economics (since 1994) – Develop budgets, evaluate the viability of selected aquaculture innovations, predict annual production and farmgate values, and monitor selected cultured species' farmgate, wholesale, and retail prices.

3. Alternative Oyster Postharvest Processing Systems (1999-2007). The Mississippi State University-Coastal Research and Extension Center and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources-Seafood Technology Bureau jointly conducted a collaborative research and outreach program on oyster postharvest processing.

4. Ornamental horticulture economics (since 2003) – Develop economic impact models, estimate impacts of mechanization and horticulture programs, and evaluate selected cultivars and horticulture products' consumer preferences.

5. Economics of natural and technological disasters (since 2005, after Hurricane Katrina): Develop damage assessment economic models and measure the economic impacts of coastal and economic disasters.

6. Seafood marketing (since 2010, after the Deepwater oil spill): Conduct marketing outreach to promote local seafood products.

The choice of the HME focus areas was motivated by the information needs of the coastal communities and residents, marine, horticultural, coastal-related industries, business establishments and organizations, and state and federal regulatory agencies. The specific mandates of state and federal funding initiatives dictated some of the directions of HME programming efforts. During the past three decades, the MSU-CREC's HME Program was made possible by additional extramural funding from state and federal agencies totaling more than 16 million dollars.

The long-term collaborative research and extension work with other economists, biologists, engineers, horticulturists, food scientists, geographers, lawyers, and media and information technologists from state and federal agencies, other universities, and other states was very stimulating and productive. Most importantly, I have been fortunate to collaborate as a co-PI with other CREC faculty, which jointly enabled us to raise over $16 million in external research funding.