Agricultural Economics

The future veterinarians must integrate the economic perspective into their professional approaches, within the framework of sustainable development, and be aware of the significance of man's use of scarce resources in all production activities, including livestock, subject to the laws of the market economy. Rental animals are farmed for exclusively economic purposes, and the profitability of livestock enterprises is a sine qua non for their survival.
The future veterinarian must, therefore, know the main economic concepts and properly use the corresponding terminology. It must be able to understand the behavior of the economic agents of demand and supply in the market, thanks to the help of microeconomic models.
It should also know the main aspects of the commercialization of agricultural products, handle the basic concepts of accounting in the livestock enterprise and sector accounting through the analysis of the main agricultural macro magnitudes, and be familiar with the general objectives and main mechanisms of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Theoretical Class Program
- Sustainable development: definition and conceptual evolution. Green development. Sustainable development, policy and market (1 theoretical session).
- The Market Economy: Introduction. Economic activities: exchange, production, and consumption. Goods, factors of production, product, and income. Organization of the economy (1 theoretical session).
- Consumption. The utility function. Consumer's preference. The relations between goods in consumption (1 theoretical session).
- The demand. The general equilibrium of the consumer. The variations of the demand according to the rent and the prices. Elasticities of demand. The law of demand (1 theoretical session).
- The production. Production and technical efficiency. The production function of a variable factor. Total, average and marginal productivity (1 theoretical session).
- The offer. The balance of production. Fixed and variable costs, means and marginal. The offer function. The law of supply. Supply-price elasticity. Analysis of the benefit. Long-term balance (1 theoretical session).
- The market. Price formation and the balance of change. The law of supply and demand. Variations in prices. The delay in adaptation and the theorem of the web. The classification of markets (1 theoretical session).
- Livestock markets. Report Interpretation (1 theoretical session).
- Reference sources of production costs: Price observatories. Management groups. Rengrati (1 theoretical session).
- Marketing through the "D.O.P./P.G.I." (1 theoretical session).
- Livestock insurance. Basic concepts. Agroinsurance (2 theoretical sessions).
- Integration models in livestock production (1 theoretical session).
- Management in veterinary clinics (1 theoretical session).


Practical classes (OR1 to OR5, 18 hours):

- Agrarian Accounting Exercise. Analysis of the assets and preparation of the opening balance sheet. Management of the accounts of money and expenses and income during the year. Determination of the results of the accounting period. Preparation of the final balance of the year and the expense and income account. The closing of the exercise. Profit, losses and gains, gross and net margin and other concepts. Calculation of various ratios for the analysis of the company.
- Agrarian Macro magnitudes: data management. Structural analysis of the Spanish and Galician agrarian sector accounts. Preparation of the composition and distribution table for the production of the Agrarian Branch. Analysis of economic indicators. Analysis of agricultural foreign trade data.
- Milk pricing

Basic references:

- LLOPIS B. 2022. Economía Agraria: concepto, elementos y tipología. Editorial Civitas, Pamplona
- Boletines anuales de prácticas de Economía Agraria
- CALDENTEY A. y de HARO GIMÉNEZ T. 2004. Comercialización de productos agrarios. Editorial Agrícola Española, S.A. - Ediciones Mundi-Prensa, Madrid
Mundi-Prensa. Madrid
- VANDENBERGHE N. 1995. Breve Teoría del Mercado para la Economía Agraria. Editorial Acribia, Zaragoza
- VANDENBERGHE N. y CEULAR VILLACÉ A. 2006. Elementos de Contabilidades para Veterinaria. Unicopia Artes Gráficas, Lugo

Complementary references:

- Web page of the División de Desarrollo Sostenible del Departamento de Asuntos Económicos y Sociales de Naciones Unidas (ONU)
- Web page of the Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación (MAPA)
- Web page of the Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC)
- Web page of the Unión Europea (UE)
- Teoría Económica y Economía Agraria. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2495781.pdf
- Plan general de contabilidad. https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2007-19884

The use of both basic and complementary internet resources specified is recommended, in the Bibliography section, as well as that electronic access bibliography available at the USC Library. A BUSC EN LIÑA https://busconline.gal. Also, through portico (http://sfx.bugalicia.org/san/az) and EZproxy (https: // ezbusc), managed by BUGalicia, it will be possible to search for scientific journals and electronic books (with the credentials of the USC). For specific topics, professors may provide open access articles or recommend searching through PubMed or Google Schoolar.

Competences indicated in the Veterinary Degree Report of the University of Santiago de Compostela:
* (GVUSC) Generic Competencies:
- GVUSC02. Ability for analysis and synthesis
- GVUSC03. General knowledge of the working area
* (CEDVUSC) Disciplinary Competencies:
- CEDVUSC 11. Knowledge of the basis of operation and optimization of animal and plant production systems and their impact on the environment
- CEDVUSC 13. Knowledge of the organizational, economic and management aspects in all those fields of the veterinary profession
* (D1VUSC) Professional Skills:
- D1VUSC 11. Assessing and interpretation of the productive and health parameters of an animal collective, considering the economic, environmental aspects and welfare, seeking their optimization
 - D1VUSC 15. Technical and economic advice and management of veterinary field in a context of sustainability
* (CEAVUSC) Academic Competences:
- CEAVUSC 01. Analyze, synthesize, solve problems and make decisions in the professional fields of veterinary medicine
- CEAVUSC 08. Be aware of the need to keep up-to-date knowledge, skills and attitudes of professional skills
Through a process of permanent formation
* (CTVUSC) Transversal Competences:
- CTVUSC 01 Ability for reasoning and argumentation
- CTVUSC 07 Ability to solve problems through the integrated application of their knowledge

The theoretical class schedule is evenly distributed among the various topics of the program. The expository teaching of the subject of Agrarian Economy represents 13 hours of interactive master classes in which the attention of the students and their participation is requested to obtain a perfect understanding of the discipline (the students can interrupt the explanations at any moment to raise questions and request clarification). Each student, in these classes, is expected to actively participate and collect information directly for the preparation of personal notes.

The explanations corresponding to the expository teaching are based on the projection of graphs, tables and figures exclusively, indicating their origin in each case to facilitate their location and use by the students for the study of the subject, complementing the notes taken in class for the elaboration of personal notes and the consultation of the bibliography indicated for each subject. In this way, students can put higher attention in class without having to worry about copying the graphics, tables or figures that are projected, since they know perfectly the source from where they come.


The practical teaching represents 18 hours divided into 4 sessions of 4 hours (PRACTICES LOR1 G1-G6, OR2 G1-G6, OR3 G1-G6, OR4 G1-G6) and a session of 2 hours (PRACTICE OR5 G1-G6), in classroom, dedicated to the interactive approach to elements of business accounting, diverse Agrarian macro magnitudes, elements of national accounting, and main instruments of the Common Agricultural Policy.

These lectures and practical teaching schedule are complemented by an additional hour of group tutoring (mainly face-to-face, nevertheless virtual sessions can be scheduled but respecting the time slots shown in the corresponding course calendar) in which students can raise all kinds of doubts or questions about the subject and their teaching.




All teaching will be carried out with the support of ICT and with the systematic use of the Virtual Campus as a teaching support.

- Regular attendance at the classroom expositive sessions and the scheduled practical activities. To take the exam, students must attend 100% of the practical sessions, including the work assigned to them.

- The student's final grade will be based on a classroom exam that includes the material taught in the expository classes (50% of the final grade).

- The tasks and/or tests related to the practical sessions (continuous evaluation) will represent 50% of the final grade.
It is necessary to obtain a minimum of 5 points (out of 10) in each part (expository and practical) to proceed to calculate the final average grade. If a student pass only one of the parts (theory or practice), the qualification is kept until the second chance exam.
Practical sessions grades and continuous assessment grades will be saved for 1 year.

Attendance to theoretical and practical sessions is compulsory and the evaluation system is based in continuous assessment, so class attendance waiver does not apply.

In case of plagiarism, fraud or improper use of technologies, the provisions of the “Normativa de avaliación do rendemento académico dos estudantes e de revisión de cualificacións” will apply.

It is indicated, by normative imperatives and in general, 32 hours are dedicated to diverse tasks, and a total of 43 hours of personal work of the student. However, these figures should be taken with great reserve since in reality these concepts are difficult to quantify, and it should also be noted that the study and work needs of the students present a great variability according to the personal circumstances of each of them.

PRESENTIAL WORK IN CLASS
Lectures 13 h
Computer practises 18 h
Tutorial sessions 1 h
Total hours presential work 32

AUTONOMOUS WORK OF THE STUDENT
Autonomous study 32 h
Reports elaboration 4 h
Cases /problems resolution 4 h
Examinations 3 h
Total hours autonomous work 43

TOTAL HOURS 75

It is strongly recommended to attend classes in an active and continuous way, taking into account all the explanations of the teachers, to study in a complementary way the necessary time until the perfect understanding of the concepts of the subject, and to elaborate the diverse works requested.