Major Topics in Agricultural Economics.....

Since the 1970s, agricultural economics has primarily focused on seven main topics, according to a scholar in the field: agricultural environment and resources; risk and uncertainty; food and consumer economics; prices and incomes; market structures; trade and development; and technical change and human capital.....

Agricultural Environment and Natural Resources

In the field of environmental economics, agricultural economists have contributed in three main areas: designing incentives to control environmental externalities (such as water pollution due to agricultural production), estimating the value of non-market benefits from natural resources and environmental amenities (such as an appealing rural landscape), and the complex interrelationship between economic activities and environmental consequences. With regard to natural resources, agricultural economists have developed quantitative tools for improving land management, preventing erosion, managing pests, protecting biodiversity, and preventing livestock diseases.
 

Food and Consumer Economics

While at one time, the field of agricultural economics was focused primarily on farm-level issues, in recent years agricultural economists have studied diverse topics related to the economics of food consumption. In addition to economists' long-standing emphasis on the effects of prices and incomes, researchers in this field have studied how information and quality attributes influence consumer behavior. Agricultural economists have contributed to understanding how households make choices between purchasing food or preparing it at home, how food prices are determined, definitions of poverty thresholds, how consumers respond to price and income changes in a consistent way, and survey and experimental tools for understanding consumer preferences.
 

Production Economics and Farm Management

Agricultural economics research has addressed diminishing returns in agricultural production, as well as farmers' costs and supply responses. Much research has applied economic theory to farm-level decisions. Studies of risk and decision-making under uncertainty have real-world applications to crop insurance policies and to understanding how farmers in developing countries make choices about technology adoption. These topics are important for understanding prospects for producing sufficient food for a growing world population, subject to new resource and environmental challenges such as water scarcity and global climate change.
 

Development Economics
Development economics is broadly concerned with the improvement of living conditions in low-income countries, and the improvement of economic performance in low-income settings. Because agriculture is a large part of most developing economies, both in terms of employment and share of GDP, agricultural economists have been at the forefront of empirical research on development economics, contributing to our understanding of agriculture's role in economic development, economic growth and structural transformation. Many agricultural economists are interested in the food systems of developing economies, the linkages between agriculture and nutrition, and the ways in which agriculture interact with other domains, such as the natural environment.