INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURE EXPERT, REGENTS PROFESSOR EMERITUS G. EDWARD SCHUH, DIES AT 77
 Regents Professor Emeritus G. Edward Schuh, who retired from the University of Minnesota last year, died Sunday due to complications following heart surgery. He was 77 years old.
An expert in the areas of economics and agriculture, with particular interest in agricultural and food policy, economic development, international trade, and exchange rate policy, Schuh held joint appointments in the University’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Department of Applied Economics, and Department of Economics. He served as head of the then-Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics from 1979 to 1984 and as dean of the Humphrey Institute from 1987 to 1996. In the intervening period, he was the director of agriculture and rural development for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. From 1996 until his retirement in 2006, Schuh served as director of the Orville and Jane Freeman Center for International Economic Policy in the Humphrey Institute.
Schuh held a variety of positions in university settings and governmental organizations. Just prior to assuming the Freeman Center Chair in 1997, Schuh had been dean of the Humphrey Institute for ten years. Schuh held both faculty and administrative positions in the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University and in the department of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Minnesota. He also served as program advisor to the Ford Foundation in Brazil, as senior staff economist on President Ford’s Council of Economic Advisors, as Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs and Commodity Programs at the US Department of Agriculture, and as the World Bank’s director of agriculture and rural development.
Schuh held a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Purdue University, a master’s of science degree in agricultural economics from Michigan State University, and a master’s of arts and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He has received five professional awards from the American Agricultural Economics Association: (1) best Ph.D. dissertation, in 1961; (2) best published research, in 1971; (3) best journal article, in 1974; and (4) contributions to policy analysis, in 1979; and (5) publication of enduring value, in 1988. He was named Professor Honoris Causis at the Federal University of Vicosa in 1965, and received the degree of Doctor of Agriculture, honoris causis, from Purdue University in 1992.
In the spring of 1998 Schuh was elected a Regents Professor, the highest academic honor that can be bestowed on a faculty member at the University of Minnesota. In 1998 Schuh also had a classroom named after him in the department of agricultural economics and rural sociology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil for his contributions to the university over the years.
For his work in developing agricultural economics research and teaching institutions in Brazil, Schuh was named the first “Legendary Member” of the Brazilian Society of Rural Economics and Sociology in 2004 (photo at right). He also received Brazil's highest scientific award, the National Order of Scientific Merit, Gra Cruz, the equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Just last week, Schuh was named a recipient of the President’s Outstanding Service Award. He will be recognized at the Board of Regents meeting on May 8.
Schuh is survived by his wife and three daughters. A visitation will be held on Thursday, May 8, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Mueller Bies Funeral Home at 2130 N. Dale St. (Dale at Co. Rd. B) in Roseville. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. on Friday, May 9, at St. Jerome’s Catholic Church at 380 E. Roselawn Ave. in Maplewood.
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