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The Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia was founded in 1929. At that time, Professor William Firor organized and chaired the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at what was then known as the Georgia State College of Agriculture. When the Georgia State College of Agriculture became a part of the University of Georgia system in 1931, Professor Firor continued as Department Head of Agricultural Economics until his retirement in 1951. He was a gifted teacher who taught his students how to think, analyze problems and to care for Georgia agriculture. He was an innovator in Georgia agriculture and a friend to both the farmer and the student. These factors marked the Department's programs which have continued to grow and change.
The Department has a long history of undergraduate and graduate education. While undergraduate education in the Department began at the end of the 1920s, the masters program began after World War II in 1948. The Ph.D. program was initiated in the mid-1970s with the Department's first Ph.D. degree awarded in 1976. New undergraduate majors and graduate degrees have been implemented in recent years to address important emerging problems. The Agricultural and Applied Economics Department presently offers three undergraduate majors (Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Environmental Economics and Management) and four graduate degrees (M.S. in Agricultural Economics, M.S. in Environmental Economics, non-thesis Master of Agricultural Economics and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics).
Agricultural Economics research began with marketing research at Griffin in the 1950s. The Department's research expanded to cover such important areas as marketing, management, policy, economic development, and natural resource and environmental economics.
Extension Agricultural and Applied Economics began with marketing and farm management. Later extension economic development was added. Today extension faculty members are located in Athens, Tifton and Statesboro, Georgia. Most of the extension faculty are organized along commodity lines and cover production, marketing and policy. A wide variety of feasibility studies for Georgia's agricultural industry are carried out through the Department's Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, which focuses research and extension efforts on important state problems.
The Department has produced a number of University leaders, including J.W. Fanning, Tom Frazier, and Wen Williams. Presently, four departmental faculty serve in UGA administration - Glenn Ames, Ivery Clifton, Josef Broder and Robert Shulstad. Departmental alumni in UGA administration include Tom Rodgers, Mark Eason, Josef Broder and Greg Ashley. Four of the Department's faculty have won national awards for outstanding teaching - Josef Broder, Steve Turner, Michael Wetzstein and Fred White. Michael Wetzstein and Terry Centner were Fulbright Senior Scholars with teaching assignments in foreign countries. These awards are another measure of the outstanding quality of the teaching in this department. But most importantly, the department's alumni are scattered throughout the world in important positions in private industry and government agencies. In order to document the impacts of the department's alumni, an alumni directory http://www.agecon.uga.edu/~alumni/index.html has been developed and is available for inspection on the Internet. The successes of our alumni are very impressive.
The Agricultural and Applied Economics Department is proud of its rich heritage. The following agricultural economists, including faculty and alumni, have been inducted into the Georgia Hall of Fame.
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