Abstract:
A survey was conducted of 277 students enrolled in Agronomy courses at the University of Nebraska to determine their knowledge and interests in international agriculture, world demographics, trade, environmental issues, crop origin and comparison of U.S. agriculture to that of other countries. This provided background information to formulate changes in field crop management courses. Less than 50% of undergraduate students knew the correct answers to most questions, indicating the need to increase the international knowledge base of students. Students were asked to rank their interest in crop production in foreign countries, international marketing and trade, agricultural concepts of the future and environmental issues and 4 subtopics within each of these topics. Agricultural concepts of the future were of greatest interest to agronomy, animal science, agricultural education and general agriculture majors, international trade and marketing to agricultural economics, mechanized agriculture and agricultural communication majors, and environmental issues to natural resource majors. These differences among majors may be an important consideration when attempting to increase the international perspective of university courses in agriculture.
Keywords:
student survey, international agriculture
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