The huge and the growing agribusiness complex requires increasingly sophisticated management. Traditional skills of the agricultural economist are being supplemented by increased exposure to computer science, accounting, and analytical skills in mathematics and statistics. At every level in agriculture the need for more effective management of price risk is creating exciting opportunities for students interested in management, analysis, marketing, and the decision process of public institutions. New emerging problems are creating a whole new range of opportunities for agricultural economists. Pockets of rural poverty dull the luster of our agricultural abundance.
Some people still go to bed hungry, at home and abroad.
Although rural people need, and are demanding, equal access to public services such as schools, roads, medical care, and housing, the money to provide these services is very limited. The quality of life is threatened by misuse of our natural resources. More than ever, farms and other businesses must be aware of the environmental impacts of their business decisions. Some agricultural economics graduates are turning to these crucial public issues as employment opportunities which supplement the opportunities in commercial agriculture and agribusiness. Specializations within the Field and Graduate Studies Flexibility, with the ability to specialize, is the byword for the undergraduate agricultural economics curriculum.