Press Release

James (Jim) L. Anderson, Professor of Food and Resource Economics and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems, University of Florida (UF), has been selected as a Fellow of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade (IIFET).

IIFET is an international professional association of individuals, institutions and agencies from over 65 countries. IIFET Fellows are selected because they have made substantial, long-term, ongoing contributions to the advancement and development of theoretical and/or empirical economics of fisheries, aquaculture or seafood trade, as evidenced by research, teaching, academic service, and policy impacts.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Jim Anderson has been selected as one of two Fellows to be named in 2018, and will give a keynote address at the biennial IIFET 2018 Conference in Seattle, Washington.

Dr. Anderson has held a range of positions in a diverse group of institutions, through which he has had a broad and sustained impact on the fields of fisheries and aquaculture economics and seafood trade. He is among the world’s foremost experts in the economics of aquaculture, capture fisheries, and their interaction in the global seafood marketplace. Achieving his PhD from University of California, Davis, in 1983, Jim won both the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) Outstanding Dissertation Award and the (inaugural) Publication of Enduring Significance Award from the journal Marine Resource Economics (MRE) for his dissertation work. This path-breaking research predicted that newly emerging aquaculture technology -- with its many inherent production, genetic selection, and marketing advantages -- would inevitably grow and surpass production from key capture fisheries. He was among the first to identify biological and market mechanisms by which the two systems (aquaculture and wild fisheries) would interact, and developed models and empirical analysis to predict and simulate such interactions.

The research portfolio Jim developed during his career at the University of Rhode Island, the World Bank, and now at the University of Florida (where he was hired under the UF preeminence initiative) illustrates his ability to employ appropriate and sophisticated analytical, statistical, and numerical tools to analyze complex fisheries systems and their interconnections over space and time. Jim’s economic intuition is rigorously based and solid, but it is his creative out-of-the box thinking and ability to see aspects of systems that others miss that distinguishes his career.

In addition to developing our understanding of the economic impacts of aquaculture and predicting its role in sustainably feeding the world’s growing population, Professor Anderson has had made important advances in understanding fisheries markets and mechanisms. Early in his career, he designed novel empirical studies using surveys of buyers and wholesalers to understand the demand for various characteristics of seafood and was the first economist to use conjoint analysis to elucidate and compare the value of farmed- and wild-caught salmon attributes.

Jim’s expertise brought sophisticated econometric methods to bear to predict market prices for fisheries products. This work includes early use of state-space, time-series forecasting methods to understand short- and long-term trends in the globally-traded fisheries products. He also employed these approaches to explain the failed attempts to develop shrimp futures contracts in the US. His book, The International Seafood Trade, was one of the first works to comprehensively address the importance of trade in the growth and economic development of the seafood sector. While his findings with respect to prices were significant, the explicit link to global markets foreshadowed important trends before they became widely understood.

During his tenure at the World Bank, Dr. Anderson produced a strategy for World Bank engagement in fisheries, oversaw the development of a model projecting future global seafood supply and demand, and continued to develop his work on performance indicators for fisheries. He led a panel of international experts representing widely diverging positions, ranging from heads of industry and academia to outspoken environmental advocates, to develop a common vision for future oceans use, resulting in the “Indispensable Ocean” report.

Leadership and service have been distinguishing characteristics of Jim’s career. He served as chair of the Department of Resource Economics at URI, Editor of Marine Resource Economics, member of IIFET’s governing body, on several National Academy of Science panels, leader of the World Bank’s Program on Fisheries and Aquaculture (PROFISH), and now serves as Director of the new Institute of Sustainable Food Systems at UF. Dr. Anderson’s legacy in recruiting into fisheries and aquaculture, and training graduate students, is also outstanding; he served on some 70 Ph.D. and Master’s committees, chairing or co-chairing 40 of these.

Jim’s (and his students’) influence throughout academia, industry, government, and a range of nongovernmental institutions, his work bridging divergent positions, and his innovative research, have brought the useful application of economic thinking, data, and analysis into focus for those in, and outside of, our field.

For further information, contact:
Ann L. Shriver
Executive Director
International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade
Oregon State University
Department of Applied Economics
Corvallis, OR, 97331 3601
USA
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +1 541 737 1416