This does not mean that we ate doing great. As we have learnt from the first lessons in Economics, " more prefers to less". As a unified body of professionals in this country, we must raise our voice and play our role better than in the past. Although plantation agriculture plays an extremely important role in the country, it is quite unfortunate that agricultural economists have a very little to do with this sector. Another area is the livestock sector. Further, in macroeconomic policy formulations, we have very little of no ascribed role to play. The fisheries sector, environment management etc. are other important sectors, which I can cite.

Without getting into much with details let me ask the question " why is it that still we have not been able to solve our problems such as food, shelter and clothing?" I am not talking about the lifestyle in the western world. By our standards, a healthy life safe drinking water, a basic meal etc, still remain luxuries to many of the people who are our concern. The green revolution, blue or white revolutions-where have these taken us? Can we feel happy about these events?

We are at the doorstep of the 21st century with full of hopes. In my opinion, still we are not ready to welcome to the new century. That is because we have not learnt lessons from the past. The physicists are a group of professionals who have at least admitted the mistakes they have made in the past. During the middle of the century, in fact when we were glorifying the " Newtonian approach to Science", they began to reject it. Today only a very few physicists accept Newtonian Quantum Mechanics as a way to explain the real world. Modern developments in physics have gone far beyond the Newtonian thinking. Given below is a brief history of the development in the field of physics. 
 

• Copernicus (1543): overthrew the geocentric theory of the universe. 
• Isaac Newton (1642): world operates according to exact mathematical laws
• Thomas Young (1803) double-silt experiment
• Electron discovered (1900)
• Max Plank (1900): quantum hypothesis
• Albert Einstein (1915) theory of relativity
• Louis de Broglie (1924) matter waves
• Niels Bohr (1927) principle of complementarity
• W. Heisenberg (1927) uncertainty principle 
• J. S. Bell (1964) Bell's theorem
• Twelve new particles discovered (1974-1977)
• Alain Aspect (1982): observation is dependent upon observer

However, still in my view, we economists are afraid to think beyond the mechanistic view of the world. While appreciating the great services he has rendered to our profession, with complete respect and honor, I would accuse Professor Samuelson as the Newton in Economics. He introduced the reductionist's view to our discipline with undue recognition of simple models. Perhaps he might not have wanted it, but his followers like you and I learnt it without understanding its limits and thought of economics as a science. The higher the number of equations we include in our paper or presentation, we make others believe that the paper is rigorous and scientific. Only very few have recognized the danger of this new development. If I name a few, Kenneth Boulding, Kenneth Galbraith, and Robert Heilbroner were among them and we refused to consider them as blue-blooded economists.

The present status of our profession is linked with the inevitable results of bluntly embracing the Newtonian approach by economists. As one of the professors in his class when he was asked about the implications of his theory in the real world, " No we don't have to worry about the real world because it is a special case". Aren't we making the same mistake over and over again? How realistic are the models we have built or assumptions we have made to make actual policy recommendations? Have we given sufficient thought on these lines? My answer is " No ".

If I take the liberty to list down just three problems that our profession is faced with today, without presenting in a chronological order they are as follows:
 

(1) We, agricultural economists have promised to deliver to the world the things we cannot deliver. We were so optimistic that we dominated " Social Sciences" and made the whole world believe that we are running the world.

(2) We have embraced the reductionist's view with out without any hesitation and have narrowed down the real world into few economic variables, may be supply, demand and/or price. We have simply forgotten the whole problem so much so that we are considering only a small fraction of the whole society and the nature. We simply considered the ecological and cultural or sociological aspects such as salt and pepper to the grand steak of economics.

(3) We have relied too much on "theories". We have a standard way of testing hypothesis. the hypothesis always come from theories and we are afraid to even slightly deviate from these structured models. How often do we let the data speak or go ahead with as little as prior knowledge? We always believed there is a reality to be discovered. We as economists were faithful servants to the Cartesian framework and Newtonian mechanics rather than being scientists. As, A. S. Eichner (JEI, 1983) points out, economists can retain the neoclassical core of its theory or, alternatively, it can one day become a science. It cannot have it both ways.
 

Although we are living in a developing country, in my opinion, we have a unique role to play in making this change possible. Agricultural economists can easily recognize the importance of natural and environmental resources in economic development and let us have a continued dialogue with natural resource economists, ecologists, biologists, medical doctors and agriculturists to understand these changes that are taking place in these areas. Further to bring human aspirations into the development arena in our teaching and research, we must not forget our ultimate goal; the farmers and consumers in the country. We should keep them in the center of our inquiries. Further, if we interact with rural economists, home economists, rural sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and extensionists more frequently, we are on much better grounds to make these changes in our profession.

We would feel much more comfortable; if the forum we organize today is taken over by the brighter young minds of tomorrow; to face this reality, transfer our profession – agricultural economics – into a better one in order to address the real world problems and, to solve them with our limited contribution in a better way. Let us face the reality; let us work towards changing our earth to be a better place to live. Let us not give it up; never; never; never.