In today’s market, graduate students may seek careers where they are tasked with evaluating policy issues and effectively communicating their results to policymakers and other stakeholders. Therefore, the Graduate Student Section (GSS) and Council on Food, Agricultural & Resource Economics (C-FARE) partner for the 4th Annual Policy Communications Competition. This competition provides graduate students with an opportunity to gain experience in both written and verbal policy communication.

The barriers and challenges of recruiting and retaining students to focus on agri-food-related jobs come from different perspectives and resource limitations, especially the transition from high school to college[1].

Recently the importance of agricultural trade for the United States was discussed which accounts for over one-third of U.S. gross farm income. However, the benefits of trade freedom or having less trade barriers go well beyond a specific industry or country as seen in the graph below.