On the 7^th and 8^th of June 2018, Dr Tracy Davids, a researcher at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, and manager of the Bureau of Food and Agricultural Policy’s commodity markets division attended the annual World Outlook Conference in Spiez, Switzerland.

The World Outlook Conference is an annual event, focussed on forward-looking simulation modelling for agricultural policy analysis. It is attended by policy analysts from a number of global institutes, such as the FAO, the OECD, the European Commission, as well as country-specific research institutes or government analysts. During this two day conference, participants discuss and exchange views on the future, as well as specific issues facing agricultural commodity markets globally. This conference furthermore serves as a platform for academics and analysts to present results from their latest work to discuss methodological challenges and improvements and to ultimately identify possibilities for future collaboration on related issues. Countries represented at this year’s World Outlook Conference include the United States of America, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Japan, China, Norway and South Africa.

In Spiez, Dr Davids presented the methodology that she applied in her PhD thesis. As part of her recently completed PhD thesis, Dr Davids developed an innovative structure for partial equilibrium modelling in Eastern and Southern Africa. This modelling technique links markets through bilateral trade and provides an improved representation of price formation in African maize markets. This method provides a very promising solution to modelling the impacts of changes in bilateral trade agreements on agricultural markets. The global interest in African markets and the innovation in the modelling technique led to the work conducted by Dr Davids being well received. Following the presentation, various analysts expressed an interest in the application of the trade system to future analysis of trade-related policy questions, and a number of opportunities for future collaboration were subsequently identified.