Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
Applied Economics
Non Technical Summary
The objectives are to create a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program for students to conduct economic analyses using agricultural, food, and natural resource data in the University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. Our proposal meets the Developing Pathwaysgoal by offering undergraduates in food, agriculture, or allied disciplines, the technical and leadership skills required for employment in the food and agricultural sectors or in graduate programs through an intensive internship that includes domestic and international study tours.The targeted students in Applied Economics and Agricultural Food Business Management and transfer students from outside the UMN. The intellectual focus is the application of economic analyses conducted in spreadsheets or applied econometric programs. Our project is different than existing independent study or Honors projects opportunities for our students because we propose a close mentorship process and an organized cohort with multiple colleagues in a greater and highly coordinated program. The students will be entering their junior year and be funded for up to two semesters and a summer program. The students will complete one international site visit, submit their research and compete in one undergraduate student competition with the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and visit the premier USDA ERS lab where social scientists work, tours of AES research sites and Ireland's USDA. We show that we have a recent history of funding M.S. students who enter careers in government jobs and we expect our recruitment strategy will yield students who might be suitable for graduate student funding.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The overarching goal forour USDA NIFA AFRI grant are to create a Research or Extension Experiences for Undergraduates (REEU) program to conduct economic analyses using agricultural, food, natural resource, and community development data from University of Minnesota (UMN) Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) colleagues. Our focus is on UndergraduateResearchExperiences. Specific objectives are to: 1) create an intensive mentoring program for each cohort of students that includes a common course, professional development opportunities, and laboratory environment; 2) matriculate REEU students into our 4+1 graduate program; and 3) build an international awareness through a global experience.
Project Methods
As a social science, economists do not have laboratories to collect primary data but use data from other sources such as USDA or colleagues within the Agricultural Experiment Station (AES).Our program is based around learning by doing or active student learning. The data is analyzed in computer spreadsheet or applied statistical packages. We asked our AES colleagues to suggest research topics that included data readily available from food science, plant science, forestry, water science, and other disciplines that are available and could be used to do economic analysis by an undergraduate student.Each students' research project requires them to complete an economic analysis that is done using a computer spreadsheet or an applied linear regression statistical package for analysis. An oral presentation and written publication under the supervision of the FM will be done over two semesters. Students will complete various research activities during the two semesters and submit their project to the student competition for the AAEA annual meeting.Upon completion of the research project, students will have three study tours: 1) CFANS Research and Outreach Centers; 2) visit with agricultural, food, natural resource, and rural development economists at the USDA Economic Research Service and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City offices in Kansas City, and 3) University College Dublin and Moorepark in Ireland. These visits were chosen because economists work in USDA labs and routinely do work on benefit / cost analysis; valuing economic tradeoffs in production; developing models to do policy analysis; work in multi-disciplinary teams on systems research; and other projects. Students will visit Ireland for one week to stay with a dairy farm family for two days to collect production and dairy management data, visit University College Dublin's agricultural economists, and Mooreparkhttps://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/moorepark/to enter the data in their farm record keeping system to compare that farm's performance against their benchmarked data. Students will participate in research and learn more about career opportunities.