November 21, 2017
CFTC and Kansas State University Announce 2018 Agricultural Commodity Futures Conference
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Center for Risk Management Education and Research at Kansas State University will jointly host, “Protecting America’s Agricultural Markets: An Agricultural Commodity Futures Conference,” on April 5 – 6, 2018, in Overland Park, Kansas.
This first-of-its-kind conference will include robust presentations and discussions on current macro-economic trends and issues affecting American agricultural futures markets and the importance of these markets for managing risk and protecting participants from manipulation, fraud and other unlawful activities.
“It is both fitting and appropriate to hold our first conference focused on derivatives-markets issues impacting the agricultural community in America’s Heartland. I look forward to this opportunity to join our partner, Kansas State University, to learn more about these vitally important issues and listen to the concerns of this community,” said CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo. “One of our main priorities at the CFTC is to ensure regulatory barriers do not stand in the way of long standing hedging practices of American farmers and ranchers, who depend on our markets.”
“Kansas State University is pleased to partner with CFTC on this important and timely conference addressing issues affecting market performance, as well as the value of our commodity futures markets in managing risk,” said John Floros, dean of the College of Agriculture and director of K-State Research and Extension. “This conference complements our land grant mission and Global Food Systems initiative by advancing knowledge discovery and dissemination to the agricultural community. The need to effectively manage risk in commodity markets has never been greater, and this conference provides a forum for open dialogue about critical futures market issues.”
CFTC’s Kansas City (Missouri) Office and Kansas State University’s Center for Risk Management Education and Research are collaborating to bring together people across federal, state, and local governments, with voices from agribusiness and academia to discuss a range of topics of interests to the agricultural community, who use the markets, including the global markets’ impact on agricultural futures markets; potential market manipulation; spoofing; the lack of convergence between cash and futures prices in certain markets; and other ways in which market participants and consumers can protect themselves against fraud and violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.
A conference agenda with additional details and information about registration will be released in the near future.