Agricultural economics: an exoteric or esoteric science?

Nick Vink

Agrekon, 2012, vol. 51, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: The main argument in this article is that agricultural economists in South Africa must address at least two fundamental questions, namely: (1) “What is the influence of public policy on the structure of agriculture?” and (2) “What is the influence of the governance of farm businesses on their success from a financial, economic, social and environmental point of view?” These questions have been at the core of the profession of agricultural economics since its beginning, but if agricultural economists want to provide useful answers they will need to revisit the currently dominant paradigm of applied microeconomics. As a profession, agricultural economists have not kept pace with a number of new developments in economics; have ignored the lessons of history; have lost their connection with the everyday realities of farming; and have paid insufficient attention to new developments in systems thinking.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03031853.2012.695135 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Journal Article: Agricultural economics: an exoteric or esoteric science? (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ragrxx:v:51:y:2012:i:2:p:1-21

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ragr20

DOI: 10.1080/03031853.2012.695135

Access Statistics for this article

Agrekon is currently edited by A. Jooste, National Agricultural Marketing Council

More articles in Agrekon from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().