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Now, please don't get me wrong, this is all out of curiosity. I get that agricultural economics had a different start point, in that it initially developed after a bunch of agronomists/agricultural scientists started using economic theories in their work. And, now, these departments in land-grant universities get huge government funding, so there are nice funding opportunities for students. But it seems that a lot of agricultural economics departments now deal more with research topics marginally related to agriculture, like environment, natural resources, and international development. I am curious that if I am interested in, let's say, international agricultural development and the related topics (smallholder farmer issues, technology transfer and adoption, agricultural cooperatives, gender in agriculture, etc.), why would it be better to do a PhD in an agricultural economics department, compared to an economics department or even a nice public policy department like at HKS? I think the same could be said to a certain extent for traditional agricultural topics (agricultural and commodity price analysis and forecasting, agricultural markets, agribusiness and farm management, etc.). Am I missing something?

The table can be read column-wise and row-wise. For each of the top 25 U.S. agricultural economics departments, each column counts the number of enlisted faculty by doctoral alma mater corresponding to the department listed in a given row. Each row, inversely, counts where the doctoral alumni of each department are affiliated to as tenured/tenure-track faculty within the top 25 U.S. agricultural economics departments. [ATTACH=CONFIG]7264[/ATTACH] (Open in a new tab for a larger view) Notes: 1. The ranking is based on REPEC's agricultural economics department rankings, as of April 2020. 2. The figures are based on the faculty listing in the respective department's website, as of May 26, 2020. 3. The figures only count the number of tenured/tenure-track professors in each department, excluding non-tenure-track faculty (visiting professors, research professors, clinical professors, professors of practice, adjunct professors, lecturers, and instructors). In addition, emeritus professors are also counted. 4. "General Econ" counts faculty who have a (general/non agricultural) economics Ph.D. degree. Environmental (and natural resource) economics degrees, traditionally not lumped together with agricultural economics departments (Yale, Duke, U Mass) are provided their own rows. "Canadian Ag Econ" counts faculty who have a Ph.D. degree from a Canadian agricultural economics department. "Other U.S. Ag Econ" counts faculty whose Ph.D. alma mater is other than the 25 listed. "Non-Econ" counts faculty who have a Ph.D. degree in a discipline other than economics (most commonly, law, public policy, statistics, engineering, and environmental science, among others). 5. All tenured/tenure-track faculty are counted for Cornell's Department of Applied Economics and Management. Only agricultural economics faculty are counted for Iowa State's Department of Economics. Similarly, only agricultural economics faculty are counted for Penn State's Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education. 6. Washington State University graduates are counted under "Other U.S. Ag Econ". 7. A crucial limitation of the statistics is that they do not account for the temporal variation of the alumni graduation years. Some departments were at their peak in certain years in the past, and their figures are over-represented by their graduates from those specific years, despite their graduates not landing tenure-track faculty positions in recent years, and vice-versa.

Hi all, First time poster, long time reader here. I know a lot of people on here are mostly interested in doing pure econ but that there is a growing number who are looking into the ag/resource/applied side of things. I am currently applying to grad school for fall 2017, and I was hoping to get some opinions on the types of schools I should be looking at (for Ag Econ). Any advice, both current ag econ and econ grad students, as well as from people who are applying for the 2017-2018 school year is greatly appreciated. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Ag econ major and math/stat minor; large US state school with a mid-tier ag econ and econ program Undergrad GPA:4.00 GRE:166Q, 164V, 4.5AW Math Courses:Calc (1-3), diff eq, linear (non proof), intro math stats, basic and intermediate stats; currently in probability theory and will take inference theory and 'elementary' real analysis in the Spring (yeah, after admissions) Econ Courses: Intros, intermediates, international trade, metrics, and lots of ag econ (food economics, ag trade, commodity marketing, price analysis, policy analysis, etc.) Letters of Recommendation: Associate professors; one I TA'd for (intermediate micro), one I did research with (see below) , and one who oversaw my "capstone" project (basically a less extensive senior thesis that I finished last semester over Brazilian ag trade). Research Experience:I helped integrate state level data into a commodity simulation "game" that will be used by our extension program to help teach producers in the state how to better market their crop.Nothing major. My concerns: Where to begin? Basically, I have taken a lot of math compared to other ag econ students in my department, but I know I am lacking compared the vast majority of applicants out there; but all the profs I talked to about grad school (a whopping six or seven) have been very encouraging and seem to think I have what it takes However, I won't be taking my school's intro analysis class (read as intro to proofs under an analysis context; the textbook is Lay) until after I apply. I'm basically just hoping to use it to better my proof writing and reading and get familiar with the notation. I am trying to put together a list of realistic schools I have a shot at getting (and succeeding) in. I realize that in most ag econ PhD programs, I will have to take the econ departments micro and metrics prelims. My research interests are in commodity marketing (as a risk management tool), price and demand forecasting in commodity markets, consumer behavior, and international trade. Applying to (all ag econ): Texas Tech MS, Oklahoma State MS, Nebraska MS, Iowa State MS, Purdue MS (ha), Auburn MS, and University of Florida Resource Econ MS. The reason I am doing the masters route is (1) I'm probably not ready for an ag econ Phd yet, and (2) all ag econ programs that I have seen require an MS before you can apply to their PhD program. Please give me any advice on schools that might be a good fit and what I should be doing to be a better application. Don't hold any punches.

I guess this is probably a good time to start the thread for Agricultural and Resource Economics applicants. I realize it's much earlier than last year's thread, but I guess this way we can have more time to do profile evaluations specific to AREC, give each other advice on which programs to apply for, and just share general knowledge in addition to what's been done in previous threads. Any thoughts anyone?