Course Highlights: This course surveys world food and agricultural issues, raising awareness of the sources and consequences of food production. Using examples and case studies from both developed and developing countries, the course examines key concepts and issues relevant to the world’s food production systems. Highlights include: the causes and consequences of hunger; agriculture’s economic significance; sustainable development; the role and future of biotechnology; prospects of global environmental change. 

Methods: readings, assignments, and lectures emphasize key concepts, analytic processes, idea formulation, and logical reasoning. Students will learn and develop applied research techniques. 

Outcomes: students will increase their appreciation of agriculture’s various roles and impacts on human societies, and of the forces that shape its future. Students can expect to develop and refine their capabilities in how to (1) approach and view problems from a systematic and scientific basis; (2) use and apply basic economic concepts, such as supply and demand and economic welfare; and (3) examine facts and information and to use them to support well-reasoned arguments.

General Education "Viewing a Wider World:"  This course contributes to the NMSU general education requirement under the ‘viewing a wider world’ category. Taken from a college outside of the student’s own these courses aim to expand a student’s breadth of knowledge beyond their principle course of study.

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Cindy Lynch, whose friendship and support gave me strength and confidence to pursue my goals and drew me back to a career in education. Her untimely death, only weeks after I began my teaching career at NMSU in the Spring of 2002, compels me ever more to strive to be the best teacher I can be, and to use the knowledge that she and Dr. Susan Wolcott have developed on the adult learning process. 

There are many individuals I would like to expressly thank for their help and contributions in developing this course. Dr. Connie Falk, with her passion for food and global hunger issues, has helped enormously as resource for ideas and for letting me use her Web Links and other teaching materials. Thanks go also to Dr. Rick Bernsten, who teaches a similar course at Michigan State University, and who shared with me his collection of readings gathered from a variety of sources. I greatly appreciate the kind support of Dr. Howard Leathers (University of Maryland) whose textbook forms the core of the course readings, and who kindly shared his lecture materials. 

Finally, special thanks to Dr. Lowell Catlett, Dr. Cynda Clary, and the rest of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business at New Mexico State University for the opportunity to teach in this department and for providing such fine examples of what it means to teach.