Educational Programs for Commercial Agriculture and Agribusiness
Selected problems and opportunities inherent in educational work with large Agricultural and Agribusiness firms are examined in this paper. The problems arise largely because of the increasing size and complexity of today's large firms; the nature of their requests for assistance; and existing means of teaching the personnel of those firms. The opportunities lie in helping solve their problems in a manner which retains University contact with this important audience without disrupting academic budgets and faculty relationships.
Production Organization Implications of Agricultural Industrialization
An implicit theme of industrialization in agriculture has run throughout much of the literature in agricultural economics since 1950. Maybe we have been lulled by the future tense used in the literature. Industrialization is here and much of the process has taken place without an update on patterns of thought or assessment of implications for present or future agricultural business environment. Possibly, those of us in agricultural economics research, teaching or extension at land grant colleges have undergone much less impact and reorientation than those we serve, and, theoretically, lead in thought.
A Critical Appraisal of Agricultural Economics in the Mid-Sixties
In spite of the many developments that have occurred in agricultural economics, it is only barely a science and will have difficulty improving its scientific standing. Science is characterized by an ability to predict real world occurrences with an acceptable degree of warrantability. Agricultural economics cannot do this now primarily because the actors in its models are endowed with a greater portion of omniscience than living man can claim and because they are clothed by their analysts with a rationality defined too simply as maximization of an uncomplex criterion. To prescribe for decision makers in the real world demands large elements of the artist in the counselor, calling on him to analyze and advise with experience, knack, ingenuity as well as with empirically verifiable knowledge. Agricultural economics is as much or more an art as it is a science in the service of unquestionable value it renders to policy.