One of the most distinguished agricultural economists in Europe, Professor Ulrich Koester, of the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University of Kiel, Germany, will deliver the fifth Raeburn Lecture at the University of Aberdeen next week.
His lecture, Food for Europeans : a German Perspective, will examine the German influence on
regulations in European Agricultural Policy, and how a significant shift in the German attitude will open new perspectives for the Common Agricultural Policy. He will ask whether the new move will speed up the liberalisation process, or whether the opposite is more likely.
It will take place on Tuesday, April 10, at 7.30pm in the MacRobert Lecture Theatre, on the ground floor of the MacRobert Building, King Street.
Prof. Koester studied Agricultural Sciences at the University of Gießen and at the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, and Economics at the University of Saarbrücken and at the University of Göttingen. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen.
Before he joined the faculty in Kiel, Prof. Koester was a post-doctorate fellow in the Economics Department of the University of California, Berkeley, and was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Berlin, at the Department of Economics at the State University of New York, Buffalo, and at the Institute for Development Studies, Nairobi, Kenya. He had also a professorship at the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Göttingen, and was a visiting research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, D.C., and the World Bank. Today, he still maintains close research ties with these organisations.
Prof. Koester's research interests are in agricultural market analysis, agricultural market policy, international trade in agricultural commodities and the transition of Eastern European and Central Asian economies. At IFPRI, he has conducted research on regional co-operation to improve food security as well as on agricultural policy reforms and regional market integration in Southern and Eastern African countries.
At the University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Prof. Koester is Head of the Department and teaches various courses in agricultural market analysis, agricultural market policy and international trade. He is also one of the founders of the interdisciplinary graduate college "Integrative valuation of the environment (Integrative Umweltbewertung)" which provides scholarships for PhD students in economic and social science, natural science and jurisprudence.
Prof. Koester's expertise has gained him a membership in the Council of Agricultural Policy Advisors of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry. He has served as an advisor to international organisations including the EC Commission, the European Parliament, the European Consumer Association, and the World Bank. He served as a regional editor of Agricultural Economics and is still on the board of The Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture. Currently, he is editing a special issue of the European Review of Agricultural Economics on the economics of transition of Central and Eastern European Countries. From 1989 to 1991 and from 1999 to 2001 he was Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Kiel where he is also a member of various boards of scientific advisors.