About Agricultural Economics Department

The Department of Agricultural Economics was established as a full-fledged department from April 1, 1961 at Agricultural College & Research Institute, Coimbatore. After the formation of the Directorate of Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development Studies (CARDS) in the year 1978, the department has been engaged in teaching, research and outreach activities with a strong reputation.

TNAU Agricultural Economics faculty and students have done excellent research work in wide range of issues in agricultural economics and serve as scientists, academicians banking professional and entrepreneurs at the highest levels, both in India and abroad.

The department at present has 14 faculty members who involved in education, research, policy interfacing and capacity building activities. The Department’s faculty have received numerous awards and honours. Most of the faculty are members in the professional bodies such as Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Economics Research Associations etc. Few of the alumni are Fellows of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). The Department is consistently ranked as a top graduate institute in the country producing numerous Agricultural Research Service scientists serving for the economic development and agricultural growth of the country.

The Department of Agricultural Economics is envisaged to provide excellent and high quality education in the field of agricultural economics, conduct policy oriented research in frontier areas covering agricultural and rural development issues and extend policy support to state and Central government.

Following are the key missions of the Department of Agricultural Economics:

• Impart high quality education in the field of agricultural economics to meet the ever increasing technical manpower demand
• Promote innovative and policy oriented research in frontier areas in the field of agricultural economics covering wide range of issues to achieve developmental objectives of the state
• Extend policy support to both State and Central governments, facilitate IPR protection to the inventions of the scientists, farmers and entrepreneurs, and capacity building

The department offers courses in agricultural economics for undergraduate students, masters and doctoral students. The department offers undergraduate courses for various degree programmes of the university that includes a wide array of courses. The major courses for under graduate programme include Principles of Agricultural Economics, Farm Management and Production Economics, Agricultural Marketing, Agricultural Finance and Intellectual Property. The basic courses in under graduate programme provide an excellent platform for those going to professionals as well as higher studies in Agricultural Economics. The department also offers Masters and Ph.D. program, in which the primary objective is equipping students for undertaking research in frontier areas of economics. The major courses offered are Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Agricultural Production Economics, Econometrics, Development policy, Natural Resource Economics, Environmental Economics, Institutional Economics, International Economics and Agricultural Marketing. The curriculum includes a comprehensive treatment of modern theory and empirical techniques as well as field courses taught by well experienced teachers in each of the subfields of the discipline

Student dissertation topics span a wide range of contemporary issues related to agricultural production and farm planning, natural resources and environmental economics, agricultural marketing, agricultural finance, agricultural development and impact evaluation of technologies. Students of the department in the past excelled in diverse professional areas such as scholars, civil servants, university faculty, entrepreneurs, financial / economic analysts.