During my usual morning routine of newspaper reading and coffee sipping on the way to work, I came across an interesting article and it got me curious. Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary for UN-ESCAP put forward the point that “over these past decades, agriculture has been neglected” by policy makers in East Asia & the Pacific region. (Bangkok Post, March 28) Her arguments are founded as followed. Despite being the sector that embraces a very large chunk of the employment of many countries’ economy, the macroeconomic & growth policies, especially the ones aiming to eradicate poverty, has not given the attention to the agriculture sector as it really deserves. Her main statement is that for the development policies to work, big men sitting in the Cabinet & academia should come together and give “Agriculture” a revolutionary facelift.
So, why did I become curious? I began to wonder if indeed Agriculture has been neglected by people at the Top, does the same phenomenon persist at the bottom. And by bottom, I mean students of Economics discipline and academia working in the field of Economics. I set 2 assumptions for this brief investigation of mine. First, surrounding circumstance& current trends in everyday life play quite a strong part in students’ choice of academic interests. They tend to select degree, programme or study options based on what are ‘in’ at the time. Second, the supply of education i.e. the availability of courses and books is demand-driven.
Has Agriculture also been ignored by economists and economic students in this sense? My quick finding shows some results.
As a field of study, agricultural economics is offered as an option course in nearly all of public universities in Thailand. However, out of 33 universities, only 3 of them offer a full programme in Agricultural Economics. Only for Chulalongkorn University that I have the number for the enrolment rate, and it reveals that merely 16 senior year students (of 200) took a class in Agricultural Economics in 2007, compared to 120 in International Economics, 96 in Public Economics and 68 in Development Economics.
A quick visit to amazon.com gives me some fascinating stats. First, there are not as many books on Agricultural Economics available in the online market. In the past 2 decades, books on Agricultural Economics published during these periods has not only been the fewest, but also declining in quantity. However, a quick page-flip in a book on Development Economics will show that, Agricultural Economics is reduced to become an integrated chapter on Rural Economics. So, perhaps, one should congratulate the current popularity of Development Economics as a good sign for the revival of Agricultural Economics? That, I would not argue.
A quick visit to amazon.com gives me some fascinating stats. First, there are not as many books on Agricultural Economics available in the online market. In the past 2 decades, books on Agricultural Economics published during these periods has not only been the fewest, but also declining in quantity. However, a quick page-flip in a book on Development Economics will show that, Agricultural Economics is reduced to become an integrated chapter on Rural Economics. So, perhaps, one should congratulate the current popularity of Development Economics as a good sign for the revival of Agricultural Economics? That, I would not argue.
My last tour on the web was to do a blunt check on the popularity of Agriculture, as a discipline in Economics in the virtual world. So I checked out google.com. The number of hits from the search for “Agricultural Economics” came back as 4%, out of the total number of search for all other discipline in Economics that I can think of. And for that, Business Economics takes the lion share of 34%, and 24% for Political Economy.
All in all, does my investigation support Noeleen Heyzer that a Revolution is urgently needed for the field of Agriculture, at least in Economics? This, I leave it for you to decide.
6 comments:
Please forgive my humble knowledge of economics when I try to address the issue. I find the most basic explanation to this phenomenom lies in the basic issue of demand and supply in the market.
For university students, of course, most of them would want to study in the field that would be beneficial for their future career. Given a huge difference in salary between working in a business sector and an agricultural, it is almost certain that most students will go for the former. This could also explain a slim amount of textbooks written in an agricultural field. Since no one is bothered to study it, so why bothers writing the text afterall??
Regarding the issue that the agricultural study has also been ignored by 'the top', it would probably be explained by an administrative convenience. Obviously, it is much easier to focus on other sectors where most information is readily available as opposed to the agricutural sector which most necessary and relevant information is lacking. It is also almost impossible to imagine an administrative officer to go out and personally collect data at a grass-root level. That would be a daunting task for anyone to accomplish. The reformers of the World Bank is also facing this same kind of problem right now when they are trying to move the World Bank from its one-size-fits-all policy to take into accout various situations within a country.
So at the end of the day, this is rather like a Catch-22 situation really: to increase demand in the agricultural field would need some increased attention or endorsement from the top, which is unlikely in light of its administrative incompetent. I am still trying to figure out how to overcome this scenario. Anyone want to shed some lights??
By the way, a quick google of the 'agricultural economics' brings me to the existence of The Journal of Agricultural Economics (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0169-5150&site=1). So I guess it has not been absolutely ignored by scholar circles afterall.
The overall conclusion notwithstanding, I think the results might be self-selection at the university level as well. You may have a bigger proportion of students studying agricultural economics at Kasetsart U and Khon Khan U compared to Chula, for example.
Those with less bargaining power are likely to be ignored. I personally think this is the main reason.
Also, I think (some) people care more what each sector contributes to the country in terms of money rather than the number of people in each particular sector, i.e. in terms of employment.
It's quite sad considering the current situation, especially in developing countries.
Well, it seems I'm not answering your questions, but trying to open another question ... "Has agricultural sector been ignored by most people?" ... instead.
Please let me offer observations instead of trying to answer the question.
Economics students from developing countries -- Thailand and Turkey in particular -- disproportionately go into macroeconomics, financial economics, or international economics. (You will find it pretty difficult to name Turkish economists in micro fields.)
Some of these students pursue economics because they have become interested in financial news or financial crises. (When does agricultural sector ever become news?)
it's about incentive system.. i agree with your post from newspaper.. therefore, i blame think tank institutes and the policy mechanism of thailand too
ps! i really impress your concern on this issue
Post a Comment