In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are described as rural. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.
Agricultural economics is an applied field of economics concerned with the application of economic theory in optimizing the production and distribution of food and fiber products. Agricultural economics began as a branch of economics that specifically dealt with land usage. It focused on maximizing the crop yield while maintaining a good soil ecosystem. Throughout the 20th century the discipline expanded and the current scope of the discipline is much broader. Agricultural economics today includes a variety of applied areas, having considerable overlap with conventional economics. Agricultural economists have made substantial contributions to research in economics, econometrics, development economics, and environmental economics. Agricultural economics influences food policy, agricultural policy, and environmental policy.
Irma Glicman Adelman was a Romanian-American economist.
Gordon Rausser is an American economist. He is currently the Robert Gordon Sproul Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Dean Emeritus, at Rausser College of Natural Resources and more recently, a professor of the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. On three separate occasions, he served as chairman of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, served two terms as Dean of the Rausser College of Natural Resources, and has served on the board of trustees of public universities and one private university. Rausser has been appointed to more than 20 board of directors of both private and publicly traded companies, including chairman of several of such boards.
Siegfried von Ciriacy-Wantrup was a German academic. Born in Langenberg, Germany in 1906. After doing his master's work in Illinois, he returned to Bonn to get his Ph.D. in 1931. In 1936, he left Nazi Germany for the United States, arriving at UC Berkeley and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in 1938.
Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural development and finance attempt to solve larger challenges within rural economics. These economic issues are often connected to the migration from rural areas due to lack of economic activities and rural poverty. Some interventions have been very successful in some parts of the world, with rural electrification and rural tourism providing anchors for transforming economies in some rural areas. These challenges often create rural-urban income disparities.
The Annual Review of Resource Economics peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes an annual volume of review articles relevant to natural resource economics. It was established in 2009 and is published by the nonprofit organization Annual Reviews. The current co-editors are Gordon Rausser and David Zilberman. As of 2023, it is being published as open access, under the Subscribe to Open model.
Erik Thorbecke is a development economist. He is a co-originator of the widely used Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measure and played a significant role in the development and popularization of Social Accounting Matrix. Currently, he is H. E. Babcock Professor of Economics, Emeritus, and Graduate School Professor at Cornell University.
Frederick "Rick" van der Ploeg is an Anglo-Dutch economist and former politician.
Yujiro Hayami was a Japanese agricultural economist, widely considered to be an authority on the subject. He was a Rockefeller fellow at Iowa University, a winner of Purple Ribbon Medal and a Lifetime member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. He is credited with the development Hayami Development Economics, an agricultural philosophy on the relationship of a community to the market and the state. He died on 24 December 2012.
David Zilberman is an Israeli-American agricultural economist, professor and Robinson Chair in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Zilberman has been a professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at UC Berkeley since 1979. His research has covered a range of fields including the economics of production technology and risk in agriculture, agricultural and environmental policy, marketing and more recently the economics of climate change, biofuel and biotechnology. He won the 2019 Wolf Prize in Agriculture, he is a member of the US National Academy Science since 2019, was the President of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA), and is a Fellow of the AAEA, Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics. David is an avid blogger on the Berkeley Blog and a life-long Golden State Warriors fan.
John Vasil Krutilla was an American environmental economist, known for inventing the concept of existence value, the idea that undisturbed wilderness has economic value. According to Kenneth Arrow,
"John Krutilla can fairly be said to have created or stimulated most of the agenda of modern environmental economics.. .. He pioneered in developing the idea later called 'existence value,' the value generated by the mere existence of an amenity, such as an unspoiled wilderness or species of animal or plants."
Gerald Shively is an American economist and Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. He teaches and publishes research articles and books related to contemporary policy-related issues in economic development. His specializations are in poverty, food security and sustainable development.
Derek Byerlee is an Australian agricultural researcher, economist and policy advisor.
Thomas Patrick Tomich is an American researcher in the field of sustainable agriculture. He researches a variety of subjects, including agriculture, natural resource management, food policy, and economic development. He is the founding director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at University of California, Davis and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Tomich advocates for immediate and strategic action on the part of the research community to apply current scientific knowledge to address world-wide issues relating to climate change.
A refuge area is a countermeasure against pesticide resistance in agriculture. In this technique two adjacent pieces of land are demarcated, and one is applied with a pesticide and one is not - the refuge. Given that resistance develops concurrent with application, a more complex way of dealing with the problem is needed than simply using or not using a particular pesticide. A refuge encourages the overall population to maintain a lower prevalence of resistance by segmenting them into two populations: The population receiving the pesticide and the pesticide-free population. Over time the population that suffers pesticide application will evolve resistance - and more widespread resistance. Meanwhile, the other will continue to be pesticide-naive. However the trick here is that a larger proportion of the main population will die off - allowing the pesticide-naive genetics to more successfully reproduce within the overall area, and thus to dominate the overall population.
Awudu Abdulai is a Ghanaian agricultural and development economist, and professor at the Institute of Food Economics and Consumption Studies, University of Kiel, Germany. His research and teaching focus on issues related to poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security, consumer behavior, and sustainable agriculture.
Jill Jennifer McCluskey is an American economist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Sustainability and Director of the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University.
Matin Qaim is the Schlegel Professor of Agricultural Economics and Director at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn, Germany. His research focuses on issues of food security and sustainable development.
Uma Lele is an agricultural economist, currently at the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi, India. She has spent much of her career working with the World Bank and other international organizations.
