The agribusiness sector should be renamed the food and agribusiness sector. The importance of consumers in modem society mandates that food institutions on the consumer end of the chain have greater emphasis. The historical emphasis on farm production and first handlers is out of date. Educational needs for careers in the food and agribusiness sector are unique. This is true because of the distinctive characteristics of the sector as developed in this article. Some three undergraduate and three graduate courses of study are now available to students for agribusiness careers. These courses of study need serious consideration in light of the broader redefinition of the sector. This is particularly true with regard to broader use of modern business management education and with regard to the historical preeminence of economic theory in agricultural economics education.
As a good academic 1 wanted to review the literature as I began to prepare this article. As a start, I asked a staff member to review the articles in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics for the last 15 years to note titles that related to agribusiness and/or education issues. I was somewhat surprised when she returned with several pages of titles including numerous presidential addresses, invited papers, and even a few refereed articles. I wondered what contribution I could make beyond the writings of these scholars. Curriculum changes,lT2 the need for more relevance and less artificial rigor,3 and the changing agricultural environment,"? already had been discussed.
At about this same time, I attended a social event involving several agricultural economist colleagues. This was spring so it was natural that part of the conversation that evening focused on how children were doing in college and, for those just finishing high school, where were they planned to go to school in the fall. Listening to that discussion was quite pleasant-it appears that the children of agricultural economists all do very well in school. One parent talked about a son studying engineering and another, business. Several parents mentioned exploits of children at a number of fine liberal arts colleges.
Later it struck me that none of these children was enrolled in agriculture, agricultural economics, or agribusiness. Of course, this survey suffers from small sample bias. But I also am a parent. And this conversation caused me to realize *Presented at the conference, "Developing Tomorrow's Agribusiness Leaders" held in Canberra, Australia, August 9-11, 1988.