To make sure that you get to study topics in agricultural economics that are of interest to you, we’ll use this section to provide a quick survey of what YOU are interested in and what YOU want to study. Since you are the future of agriculture, this is your opportunity to help write this module for next year’s class, who will build on this module and modify it as issues change.
You should post your interests and describe why they are important to you. If someone has already posted, then you may add to the post with support for why you think the issue should fall within the top 10. We will review the top 10 in a later module.
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To get you started and to give you some ideas, I’ve done some searches and come up with the following topics. You may investigate such topics further or think of your own. There’s no right or wrong answer. Focus on what matters to you. We will look at the issues using an economic lens later in the course.
Topics for your consideration:
- Animal rights
- Animal welfare
- Antibiotic use in animals
- Aquaculture
- Availability and price of land
- Biodiversity
- Chemical use
- Climate change effects
- Commercial urban agriculture
- Development and use of bio-based fuels
- Disease (e.g. avian flu, BSE, etc.)
- Energy prices
- Environmental effects
- Financial stability
- Food availability
- Food safety
- Food security
- Food versus fuel
- Food waste
- Foreign direct investment
- GMOs
- Government mandates and regulations
- Groundwater use
- Impact of global trade policies on food security and the supply and demand for commodities
- Labelling
- Monopolies and rights (e.g. Monsanto, Dow, AgroSciences, and DuPont)
- Population growth
- Renewable fuel
- Supply management (e.g. dairy and poultry in Canada)
- Sustainable agriculture
- Taxes and subsidies
- Technology
- Trade
- Trade deals
- Transportation
- Water availability
- Water markets and pricing