The future of the profession: opening the discussion

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present my views on the future of the profession. I did not distribute the paper in advance because I wanted to adapt it to what I would hear and see during this congress. Before making any statement about the future of this profession, I should indicate what it actually will be taken to consist of. I choose to include the practitioners because agricultural economics is a relatively practical branch of economics whose future, as in many other fields such as medicine or law, depends primarily on its enduse outside academia, where the demand side is residing that offers the jobs to university graduates as well as funding for research, and presumably does so in some positive relation to the profession’s contribution to society. Furthermore, my remarks will pertain primarily to the European agricultural economists, whose situation is in my view rather special.