2210-7843 © 2010 Published by Elsevier B.Vdoi:10.1016/j.aaspro.2010.09.001

Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 1 (2010) 1–3

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

International Conference on Agricultural Risk and Food Security

June 10~12, 2010, Beijing, China

Organized by

Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Co-hosted by

Key Laboratory of Digital Agricultural Early-warning Technology Ministry of Agriculture, P. R. China

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Beijing Office

DelPHE project of DFID China Office

2 Shiwei Xu et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 1 (2010) 1–3

1. Organization

Honorary President

Prof. Liangshu Lu Member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Former President of ChineseAcademy of Agricultural Sciences, China

General Chair:

Prof. Shiwei Xu DG of Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, and Vice President of

State Food and Nutrition Consultant Committee, China

Associate Chairs:

Prof. Xianxue Meng DDG of Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Prof. Shenggen Fan DG of International Food Policy Research Institute, USA

Dr. Halima Begum First Secretary of Department for International Development, UK

2. Programme Committee

Chairman:Prof. Shiwei Xu Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Co-Chairs:Prof. Qiao Zhang Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Prof. Kevin Chen International Food Policy Research Institute Beijing Office, USA

Prof. Milton Boyd University of Manitoba, Canada

Members:Prof. Huijie Zhang Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Prof. Zhiqiang Li Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Prof. Holly Wang Purdue University, USA

Prof. Wyn Morgan University of Nottingham, UK

Prof. Jeffrey Pai University of Manitoba, Canada

Prof. Samuel Shen San Diego State University, USA

Prof. Guozhu Tuo Capital University of Business and Trade, China

Prof. Yuanfeng Zhao Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China

Prof. Shouyang Wang Center of forecast of Chinese Academic of Science, China

Prof. Qingbo Zhou Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, CAAS, China

Prof. Zhemin Li Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Dr. Chuan Wang Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Secretariat:Mr. Ke Wang Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Ms. Yumei Zhang Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Ms. Ailian Zhou Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Ms. Yan Liu Beijing Office of IFPRI, China

Mr. Zijie Liu Agricultural Information Institute of CAAS, China

Shiwei Xu et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 1 (2010) 1–3 3

3. Foreword

Agriculture is an important industry for almost all economic entities in the world, especial for the developing

countries. But agriculture is also a high risk industry, not only subject to the adverse influence of natural hazards but

also challenged by the risk of market price fluctuations, policy changes, and ecology deterioration. Agricultural risk

not only restricts the stability of farmers’ income, but also can result in food security risks, spread to the entire

national economy. With possible global climate change and global food crisis in recent years, managing agricultural

risk has become an important issue and had draw great attentions from the agricultural researchers and economists

around the world.

In order to share international experience and enhance research on the issues of agricultural risk and food security in

the world, we organized the international conference on agricultural risk and food security (ARFS) on June 10-12,

2010. This conference was held in Beijing, and more than 160 well-know experts from 14 counties and 5

international organizations have attended this important conference. Prof. Fangquan Mei (former president of AII

CAAS) and Prof. Shenggen Fan (DG of IFPRI) gave the keynote speeches for the audiences of ARFS, 8

distinguished scholars from IFPRI, World Bank, OECD, Cornell University, CAU, CDC and CAAS take their

excellent presentations in the plenary sessions, and 48 authors present their researches in the parallel sessions.

Actually, ARFS conference was the first international conference focuses on crop insurance and agricultural risk

management since China start its new round agricultural insurance pilot program in 2007 and we had received many

active contributors.

More than 170 submissions from 16 counties had received by ARFS, and we finally accepted 80 manuscripts after

carefully review. According to the author's wishes, 61 articles were included to publish in this issue of Procedia

Agriculture--the official proceedings of ARFS. These papers investigate many important issues of agricultural risk

analysis, crop insurance and food security, including farmer’s risk behavior, ratemaking, catastrophic risk, weather

index insurance, food safety attitude, food security analysis and institution construction and the authors come from 7

counties, including China, USA, U.K. Japan, Belgium, India and Indonesian. We believe that this proceeding will

make a significant contribution to the better understanding of agricultural risk and food security issues in the world.

We would like to take this opportunity to thanks all authors for their contribution to the proceedings. Your works

have made an irreplaceable contribution to research on the issues of Ag risk management, Ag insurance and Food

security in China. We also sincerely thank the referees who participated in the reviewing process. You contributed

your precious time and energy, picked up high quality papers, and made sure the quality of ARFS conference and

this proceedings.

Shiwei Xu (China)

Qiao Zhang (China)

Kevin Chen (USA)

Milton Boyd (Canada)