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CARD: Center for Agricultural and Rural Development

Fall 2000, Vol. 6 No. 4

pdf for printing Meet the Staff: Frank Fuller

Picture of Frank Fuller
FAPRI (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute) is one of only a few organizations around the globe that focuses on providing model-based economic policy analysis for the agricultural sector," says Frank Fuller, the technical director for FAPRI models. "It remains free from political pressures that can influence and censor outcomes of policy analysis. Consequently, FAPRI is well regarded for its contribution to domestic and trade policy debates," he says. FAPRI is part of the Trade and Agricultural Policy Division at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD).
Frank started working on FAPRI's China model in May 1996 as a postdoctoral research associate. He officially joined the FAPRI staff in July 1997 as a livestock trade and policy coordinator. His primary responsibility was to maintain and improve the international livestock and dairy models. He also was responsible for coordinating livestock model development with grain sector analysts and with the U.S. sector modelers for FAPRI at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
This fall he assumes oversight of the technical aspects of the international grain and oilseed models as well as the livestock and dairy models. As an adjunct faculty member in the economics department, he teaches an introductory undergraduate course in agricultural marketing: "Agricultural Firms, Markets, and Prices." Frank earned a doctorate in economics from Iowa State University (ISU) in May 1996. His fields of specialization were international trade and agricultural marketing. His undergraduate degree was in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Before coming to ISU in 1991 to begin his doctoral program, he spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.
"I enjoy seeing other places and meeting people from other cultures," he says. "One of the greatest satisfactions of working with FAPRI is being able to present research in a wide variety of venues and to hear the positive comments and appreciation of the audience. There is a great demand for policy analysis." Frank has traveled extensively, doing collaborative research and/or presenting papers in Canada, China, Japan, France, Ukraine, Turkey, and even the central Asian country of Kazakhstan.
"My greatest challenge at FAPRI is to balance my time between the demands of maintaining models and undertaking publishable economic research," he says. "The environment at CARD/FAPRI is rife with opportunities for research." Among his recent journal publications, coauthored with other FAPRI staff, was an article in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics titled "The Impact of the Berlin Accord and European Union (EU) Enlargement of Dairy Markets." His latest CARD working paper, coauthored with Dermot Hayes, was "Optimal Chinese Agricultural Trade Patterns Under the Laws of Comparative Advantage" (99-WP 233).
Outside of work, Frank serves as missions board chairman of the First Evangelical Free Church in Ames. In addition to participating in church activities, he and his family enjoy traveling together. His wife Cindy, an avid reader, works as a paralegal for a law firm in Ames. Their older son Franklin, 14, is a freshman at Ames High School. His interests include science, cross-country track, and the saxophone. Their younger son Joseph, 12, a sixth grader at Meeker Elementary School in Ames, enjoys flag football, drawing, and the trumpet. ?