A Four-Year College Course Based upon the Economics of Agriculture

Abstract

In the last few years there has been a great deal of popular discussion of problems which relate to the economics of agriculture. Our agricultural colleges should properly have taken the lead in the consideration of these problems by conducting researches in agricultural economics by disseminating this information through the extension departments, and by providing well-organized courses of study in the various phases of agricultural economics for resident students within the college. It is doubtful if any of our agricultural colleges have come up to the reasonable expectations of their clientele either in the research, the extension, or the teaching departments of the college, in furnishing the needed and desired assistance in the solution of the economic problems which now confront agriculture. The basic reason for the failure of agricultural colleges to respond more effectively to the relief of the economic distress of agriculture is that the agricultural curricula center almost entirely about the physical sciences and fail to give anything like adequate attention to the sciences dealing with human relationships such as economics, psychology, history and sociology. Agricultural economics in most agricultural colleges is looked upon as an unimportant incident to the agricultural curriculum as a whole, since only one or two disconnected and very general courses are usually offered in this field. The department of agricultural economics, where one exists, is usually merely a service department for the purpose of furnishing information of general interest but of doubtful practical value. In a few colleges which have been pioneers in this field and where strong courses are offered in agricultural economics the work has been designed primarily for graduate students, and therefore fails to influence sufficiently the much larger number of undergraduate students who are in attendance at the college. It is the opinion of the present writer that