Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology

Agricultural economics and rural sociology

As a student in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (AERS), you’ll expand your knowledge and gain real-world experience to help improve agricultural industries for the future.

You’ll gain a broad understanding of agribusiness, marketing, trade policy, production agriculture, natural resources and community development with a degree in agricultural economics. Emphasis areas are available in agribusiness or applied economics to further tailor your studies, as well as minors in agribusiness, agricultural commodity risk management and natural resource economics to complement a variety of majors.

You’ll also have the opportunity to earn the agricultural commodity risk management certificate (ACRM) which provides further education related to managing the risk involved in commodity marketing and trading through the agricultural supply chain to maximize profits. This program is the only individually funded commodity trading and hedging program in the nation and ACRM certified students are achieving higher than market-rate entry salaries.

Regardless of what AERS program you choose, you will learn by doing. Experiential learning and opportunities outside of the classroom will help you build professional skills and opportunities to network with field and industry professionals.

Academics

Explore the agricultural economics emphasis areas to see which option is right for you. The agribusiness emphasis is designed primarily for students who want to pursue a career in agribusiness, agrifinance or who wish to be managers of their own farm or ranch. The applied economics emphasis is designed for students who would like careers in policy analysis, market analysis, rural economic development or natural resource management. It is also appropriate for students wishing to go on to graduate school or law school.

AERS also offers a master’s degree in applied economics, Idaho’s only graduate degree program in economics. The program is offered cooperatively with Washington State University, with courses taught by faculty from both universities. You’ll conduct applied research on a variety of projects to develop skills for real-world applications in the future.

Explore AERS degrees

• Agricultural economics: agribusiness emphasis, B.S.
• Agricultural economics: applied economics emphasis, B.S.
• Applied economics, M.S.
• Agricultural commodity risk management certificate

Get involved

AERS offers the Agricultural Risk Management Club, aimed at helping students better prepare for careers in risk management, as well as Collegiate Young Farmers and Ranchers, a collegiate branch of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. Members of this club work to promote agricultural literacy around the state. In addition, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences offers more than 30 clubs, making it easy to find your passion and get involved. Learn about clubs and organizations.

Discover

What current AERS students are up to, from internships to undergraduate research projects.

Key AERS research and Extension programs

• Idaho AgBiz provides crop and livestock budgets, regional market information and decision aids.
• Tapestry is a USDA-NIFA funded project to develop a transparent, open-access to an array of data and analytic services to allow new insights into the causes and nature of income growth and wealth distribution across the nation.
• The Rural Studies program supports rural residents to be prepared to lead and thrive in today’s economy and advances the frontiers of scientific knowledge in rural development.
• The Digital Economy Program is working to reduce the digital divide, allowing the benefits of digitalization to extend to all Idahoans, so no one is left behind or offline, in the growing digital economy.
• The Western Rural Development Center links the research and educational outreach of the western 30 land grant institutions with communities, local decision-makers, entrepreneurs, families and agricultural producers to address a wide range of development issues unique to our region.

Meet our people

Faculty specialty areas include productions economics, price forecasting, crop insurance, international trade, applied risk analysis, trade and marketing, macroeconomics, community-based decision-making, qualitative research methods, ripple effects mapping, natural resource policy, rural community development, supply chain management, behavioral economics, resource management, farm and agribusiness management and commodity risk management.

Support staff

Sanjay Kandel, teaching assistant, skandel@uidaho.edu

Research assistants

• Sabin Bhattarai, sabinb@uidaho.edu
• Udyan Devkota, udevkota@uidaho.edu
• Zhao Ming, zhaom@uidaho.edu
• Gaurav Pudasainee, gpudasainee@uidaho.edu
• Pawan Pyakurel, ppyakurel@uidaho.edu
• Aavash Shrestha, aavashshrestha@uidaho.edu
• Aubree Triplett, agtriplett@uidaho.edu