Summary:
For at least 30 years, dramatic changes have occurred within the farm sector as well as in the outside environment. Shifting population, income losses, declining education and health services, and the weakening community structures have caused the quality of life to deteriorate in many rural communities. In some regions dwindling rural economies have caused once-viable communities to become ghost towns. In other areas, urban development and suburbanization have encroached on rural areas. The global environment within which the farm sector operates has also experienced rapid and dramatic changes. These include increased global competition, changes in market structure, growing population, and increasing demands for recreational and environmental services that stem from land and water resources.

These and other changes in the social, economic and technologic forces affecting the rural sector will likely continue for the next fifty years. They pose tremendous challenges for agricultural and resource economics research. The geographic scope of these challenges and the emphasis on rural-urban, human-nature interactions underlies a need for critical thinking about future research directions and innovative research approaches.

This conference asked a group of leading thinkers in the agricultural and resource economics professions to discuss future research directions and to present cutting-edge methods and research results relating to resource and rural economics.