Department of Agricultural Economics

The department of Agricultural Economics was started functioning as a separate unit since 2022 by amalgamating two sister departments namely Computer Science and Agricultural Mathematics. The department primarily addresses the issues associated with socio-economic, cultural, functional and demographic dimensions of farm research, and of stakeholders associated with agriculture and allied activities and outreach missions besides imparting education to students.

Mission

The mission of the department is to acquire and transmit the basic and applied economic theories and field level innovations to the stakeholders at various levels in the farm sector to strengthen the decision making and household well-being at the micro level and social welfare at the macro level. The main activities of the department are

  • To provide a broad range of educational programs in Agricultural Economics, Computer Science and Agricultural Mathematics , which contribute to the development of human capital in the field of agricultural and rural development.
  • To coordinate and support research that strengthens the understanding of economic and community development issues, problems and opportunities.
  • To provide policy support to state and central governments on problems confronting rural development and economic wellbeing of the farmers.
  • To foster inter-institutional collaborations at regional, national and international levels for research, training and development in select areas.

Vision

The overall vision of the department is to offer socially relevant and high quality education to farm graduates, maintain a commitment to the pursuit of excellence by encouraging students to develop capacity for independent thought, critical analysis, self-awareness and social accomplishments by nurturing a sense of individual and social responsibilities. Specifically, the department is committed

  • To make the institute, a premier accredited agricultural education and research centre and provide sustained quality education programmes for human resource development for agriculture sector.
  • To sensitize students to undertake inter disciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborative research by maintaining intellectual freedom, research integrity, social ethics and professional integrity;
  • To promote the students’ sense of social and community spirit, social motive, rural upliftment, social equality, farmers’ welfare and ultimately the betterment of the rural community and
  • To undertake field level research involving farmers to identify the strategic needs and offer action oriented solutions to enhance crop productivity and farm income so that more educated youth will be attracted towards crop farming.

Comprehensive science linking agricultural science and economic society, from production to consumption

The Department of social science is specialized in education and research related to the socio-economic aspects of agriculture and food. Our research focuses on socio economic analyses of agriculture and food ‘from farm to fork’. We offer related services to governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as to corporations and civil society.

Research themes

  • Consumer acceptance of technological innovations in the food chain
  • Trends and changes in food and dietary choice
  • Rural sociology and agricultural extension
  • Rural market access, cooperatives contracts andInstitutional changes
  • Evaluating the efficiency and sustainability of the resource use outcomes.
  • Business-to-business relations including FPOs
  • Marketing Intelligence, Analysis of prices, focused on the development of models related to supply and demand that explain and predict price evolutions
  • Development of AI and IOT application in agriculture