New frontiers in the teaching of the agricultural enterprise: elements for a debate

Abstract

The ecological transition assigns a strategic role to farms in achieving the sustainable transformation of agricultural systems. Therefore, teaching of agricultural economics must make these demands of civil society its own and rethink topics, decision-making tools, and teaching methods fostering the transition to sustainable agriculture. The main aim of this article is discussing the relevant teaching topics and the useful decision support tools useful for concrete progress in agricultural economics in the cycles of university studies. Five topics are recognized as priorities for the rethinking of courses on agricultural economics: agricultural systems, equitable distribution of value, quality and value of agri-food products, territorial regeneration, protection and regeneration of natural resources. The paper focuses also on the nature and role of decision support tools in university teaching. Finally, some considerations are extended to the opportunities offered by formal teaching in the context of informal training such as university-enterprise cooperation and in the context of the internationalization of degree courses supported by the Erasmus+ program. Further analysis is needed to evaluate how to rethink both single training courses, and global study programs in agricultural economics.