Journal of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Vol 73 No 2 (2019) 1-2 1 Invited address UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS EDUCATION: CHANGING FUNCTIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES Emil Erjavec University in Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Slovenia, emil.erjavec@bf.uni-lj.si Agricultural economics is a branch of applied economics born at the turn of the 20th century. Its primary role was to use economic and its own newly developed methods to contribute towards an improved use of resources in agricultural production. It is recognized as one of the fundamental disciplines in university-level agricultural education, with its own subjects, modules and programmes. University-level education in agricultural economics (UEAE) traditionally rests on four pillars: agricultural economics, farm management, food marketing and agricultural policy, complemented by numerous other fields that extend beyond the narrow framework of economics and into other social sciences. In this presentation, we will attempt to answer the following questions: i) Why do we have UEAE? ii) What are the current situation and trends in the field? iii) What are potential strategies for the future of UEAE? In answering them, I will build on a literature review and personal expertise in the field and I will mainly focus on the situation in Former Yugoslav countries (SE Europe). A lecture of this sort would normally demand systematic and extensive research, so my approach here is more of an essay, whose intention is mainly to stimulate further discussion. The field of UEAE was born as a result of the fact that exclusively economic education was unable to equip agricultural engineers with the tools necessary for their trade. Due to the specifics of production-related and social processes in agriculture, specific knowledge and skills were necessary that demanded independent and original theories, methods, data sources and approaches. This led to special university programmes in the field of agricultural economics. Thus, in most university-level organisations active in the field of agriculture (and partly also in economics), an entire vertically integrated corpus of knowledge was formed, specialized in agricultural economics. By applying a social science approach, this knowledge shaped generations of agricultural economists around the globe, who played an important role in the development of agriculture. Highlighting the significance and societal role of agriculture, especially experts for farm management and agricultural policy played important roles due to extensive knowledge of agriculture at the micro- (production) and macro (societal) level, which can only be attained through specialization in these two fields of agricultural economics. In ex-Yugoslavia, agricultural economics gradually gained prominence after World War II. Its basic purpose was to support the economics and organisation at socialist large agricultural holdings. It was considered marginal and even heretic to study the social and economic situation of family farms. Agricultural policy was also often about legitimizing previous political decisions. Agricultural marketing was in its infancy. Regardless, curricula contained numerous fundamental agricultural economic theories and practices, and education in the field of agricultural economics in most republics in the federation was better than that in other socialist countries. This was also due to a solid foundation in Marxist political economy, which represented a good basis for economic thinking. The transition to a market economy and democracy substantially transformed the field in South-Eastern Europe. Gradually the curriculum adopted the basic structure of courses and disciplines from the Anglo-Saxon and German world, which meant using the same textbooks brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk