About My Fellowship

My name is Hope Pjesky. I am a beef cattle, wheat and sheep producer from Goltry, Oklahoma, USA. I have been chosen for the 2008 Eisenhower Agriculture Fellowship and will be the first Agriculture Fellow to visit Asia. My fellowship is a total of seven weeks. I will be visiting Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. My schedule is April 3 – April 20, 2008 in Japan, April 20 to May 3, 2008 in Malaysia and May 3 to May 21, 2008 in Thailand. During this time I will have two to three appointments per weekday. Eisenhower Fellowships has provided me with a Program Administrator in each country who is responsible for making my hotel reservations, arranging my in-country travel and making my appointments. I will also have interpreters when needed for my appointments. In addition to studying the topics outlined below, I am also interested in learning about the culture, history and food of each country.

I have two topics that I want to study on my fellowship. They are Food Safety, Defense and Traceability and International Agricultural Trade Policy. In many ways these two issues have become linked in recent years. Within the Food Safety, Defense and Traceability topic, I am interested in learning about ways that we can protect American agriculture and the food supply from possible agriterrorism events. International trade is essential to maintaining a healthy agricultural sector in the United States. Domestic agricultural policy decisions are also increasingly being influenced by international trade policy. This fellowship will give me an opportunity to better understand the differences in how developed nations (USA and Japan) and developing nations (Thailand and Malaysia) view agricultural trade issues. I hope to look at all sides of these topics and develop a first-hand, comprehensive understanding of how these issues are handled in Asian countries.

Specifically:
1. I want to learn about policies and systems being used to prevent and/or contain animal and plant disease outbreaks, food contamination and sabotage.
2. I am very interested in learning about public and private food traceability systems, especially complete farm-to-fork traceability systems.
3. I want to explore how international agricultural trade policy is influenced and what factors are important in the decision making process in different countries and regional trade blocks.
4. I would like to look at how the investment in productive capacity and technology in these countries is affected by international trade or the lack of trade.
5. I am interested in the growing relationship between Food Safety, Defense and Traceability and International Agricultural Trade.

I am interested in how all agricultural sectors deal with these topics (grains, vegetables, fruits, meat/poultry/seafood, dairy, fiber, forestry etc.). I would like to meet with: Normal-sized full-time farmers/ranchers, large farmers/ranchers, consumers, farm organizations, consumer organizations, companies with food safety, defense and traceability systems, import and export companies, government agencies with food safety, defense and traceability responsibilities, government officials that deal with agricultural trade policy, representatives from regional trade blocks, university researchers, pro-trade groups and anti-trade groups. I want to look at all sides of the issues.

If I can be of any help to you in the future or if you know of any group that would like to hear about my fellowship after I return home, just let me know. Thanks for reading my blog and please feel free to comment on my posts.