As a Land Grant institution, the department engages stakeholders in Teaching, Research, Extension and Service. Forty-nine faculty members work across all of these areas. We have approximately 600 undergraduate students and 135 graduate students. The department has two undergraduate degree programs: Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness. Within Agricultural Economics there are four options in our curriculum: Finance and Real Estate, Food Marketing Systems, Policy and Economic Analysis and Rural Entrepreneurship. We also offer a Certificate in International Trade and Agriculture that provides students with a broad-based set of courses to prepare them for operating in an increasingly global agricultural economy. The Agribusiness degree is offered jointly with the Mays Business School and emphasizes business concepts and applications to agricultural firms.
Both of our degree programs are designed to prepare our students for the challenges of the future, but are based upon the time-tested economic principles and applications our faculty have garnered over many years of experience. The graduate program offers three degrees: a Masters of Agribusiness, a Masters of Science and a PhD. The MAB is offered jointly with Mays Business School and is designed to be a professional, terminal degree. The MS program prepares students for applied research and to pursue careers in a variety of professions. The PhD prepares students to be university faculty and to succeed in government or the private sector. For the fall 2012 semester, 70 percent of our undergraduate students received offers of employment. Starting salaries ranged from $35,000 to $125,000, and averaged $52,000 for spring 2013 graduates.
New programs and initiatives have been developed to better prepare our students to become global leaders and shapers of the future of Texas and US agriculture. The Conflict and Development Academy, for example, is designed to educate students to operate in regions of the world where societal conflict is endemic and development of the agricultural economy is imperative. Supported in part by the US Agency for International Development and the HG Buffett Foundation, the Academy stresses a multi-disciplinary approach to education, drawing on courses in Agricultural Economics, Political Science, Geography, History, International Development and Liberal Arts. We also have an emerging program in Personal Financial Planning that prepares our students to enhance the financial security of Texans trough a rigorous curriculum in Risk and Insurance, Investment Planning, Income Tax Planning and Financial Plan Development.
The department offers study abroad opportunities for our students in China, France and Ghana. We are planning to expand our programs to Costa Rica in the near future. We also provide other high-impact learning activities such as inviting business professionals to visit our classrooms, meetings with students one-on-one and in small groups, and internships with business and government. Clubs and student activities such as the Agricultural Economics Society, the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate club, the Aggie Reps and the National AgriMarketing Association are all part of our departmental culture and provide leadership and service opportunities for students.
Our faculty are actively engaged in applied Research programs designed to provide producers, agribusiness managers, policy makers and other stakeholders with relevant, objective and timely results for decision making. Our research programs are diverse and cutting-edge. The key areas of research include agricultural and food policy, natural resources and the environment, climate change, conflict and development, economic development and economic impacts, energy, water and food, finance, experimental economics, international trade and transportation, and managerial economics and risk management. The department has three Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Fellows and one Nobel Laureate.
In extension, we strive to provide businesses, community leaders, policy makers and other decision makers with high quality, relevant, objective and timely information and decision aids. Our faculty are located both on campus and in district-based research and extension centers throughout the state. The department’s extension efforts focus on agricultural law and policy, economic development, farm and risk management, finance, marketing, and trade and transportation. The department’s programs provide education related to critical issues facing the state, the nation and the world. The impacts of drought, water allocation and pricing, energy leasing and property rights, risk management and strategic planning, community economics and impacts of change, Master Marketer programs, Executive Programs for Agricultural Producers and potentials and prospects in international markets. Our extension faculty have received numerous regional, national and international awards recognizing their work.
Prospective students and parents, please browse our web site and follow up with our faculty and staff if you have any questions about our programs. Business representatives, policy makers, government representatives and others, please feel free to contact me or any of our faculty and staff if you have questions or comments. We look forward to serving all of you and thank you for viewing the web site. If you would like to make a monetary contribution to one of our programs, please see the Giving Opportunities link. Thanks you!
Gig ‘Em!!
C. Parr Rosson, III, ‘71 Professor and Head prosson@tamu.edu