Dr Keith Howe: Analysing the Economics of Farming: What Every Rural Social Scientist Should Know
Wednesday, 07 October 2026 at 10:45
Analysing the Economics of Farming: What Every Rural Social Scientist Should Know
Event details
In recent years, major policy documents about UK food, farmers, and agricultural production have been published. Conspicuous by its absence is recognition that achieving policy objectives depends on use of economic policy instruments. Without that understanding, the best intentions inevitably will founder in the gap between ends and means necessary to achieve them. For the author, schooled in UK agricultural economics in the half century after 1945 – arguably its ‘Golden Age’ – at first glance the current situation is inexplicable. The seminar will explain how the rise of agricultural economics stemmed from recognition of ‘the farm problem’ in both the UK and USA, how neoclassical economics proved indispensable to illuminate and address it, and who were leaders in that context. Elementary relationships illustrating the powerful simplicity of economic principles are described. Institutional arrangements linking farm data collection and analysis to national and international policy are outlined. In the UK today, this structure has largely gone, use of tried and tested understandings and analytical tools in abeyance. Yet without their revival, out of negligence, a ‘farm problem’ with 21st century characteristics may well be on the cusp of arrival.
Link to Teams:
Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/326309923097704?p=XXj2yGSVijd3iAxlz1
Meeting ID: 326 309 923 097 704
Passcode: Xu3ZZ9Vo
Organiser
Centre for Rural Policy Research
Location
Byrne House Seminar Room or via Teams