Andrew Schmitz. Source: https://www.williamsthomasfuneralhome.com/obituaries/andrew-schmitz-2
School period
College/University
Gallery of Andrew Schmitz
University of Saskatchewan. Photo: SriMesh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CollegeBuilding-UofS.jpg)
Career
Gallery of Andrew Schmitz
University of California. Photo: Coolcaesar at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ucsbuniversitycenterandstorketower.jpg)
Gallery of Andrew Schmitz
University of Florida. Photo: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dsg_UF_Reitz_Union_20050507.jpg)
University of California. Photo: Coolcaesar at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ucsbuniversitycenterandstorketower.jpg)
Andrew Schmitz (1940–2026) was a Canadian agricultural economist and educator who taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Florida. He is known for research on agricultural policy, welfare economics, and world agricultural trade. He died in Gainesville, Florida, on October 8, 2026.
Background
Andrew Schmitz was born on October 5, 1940, in Central Butte, Saskatchewan, Canada, the son of Andreas and Katherine Schmitz. He was the youngest child in a large family living on the Canadian prairies. Central Butte was settled from 1905, the year Saskatchewan became a province, and a railway reached the area at the end of 1914.
As a boy he grew up on a farm outside Central Butte and rode horses to and from school, often in snow and sub-zero temperatures. He played baseball as a catcher for several teams, including the Marquis Wheat Kings, and was later inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 for his contribution to the province's baseball history.
Education
Schmitz studied at the University of Saskatchewan, founded in 1907 in Saskatoon, where he earned a Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture and a Master of Science, both recorded in 1963. The university's agricultural programs served a prairie province whose economy depended heavily on farming, a setting that later informed the agricultural policy questions at the center of his scholarship.
He then continued his graduate education at the University of Wisconsin, where he received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1968. The university is a land-grant institution in Madison, Wisconsin, and its combination of teaching and agricultural research placed it among the leading public universities for agricultural economics in the United States.
Schmitz began his teaching career in 1968 as a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, a campus founded in 1868 and the oldest of the University of California system. He remained in the department until 1994. In 1986 he also became a research professor at the university, and from 1989 to 1993 he served as chair of the department.
During the same period he worked outside the university. From 1986 to 1989 he was project director at the Economic Council of Canada in Saskatoon, a federal advisory body created in 1963 to advise the government on economic policy. He held an adjunct professorship at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986, and in 2001 he served as honorary chair of the university's centre for the study of agriculture, law, and the environment.
In 1998 he was research director at the Turkish Agricultural Economics Research Institute in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. His consulting work included advice to government agencies, international organizations, and law firms, as well as to the Canadian Wheat Board, a federal agency that marketed western Canadian wheat, and to Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, a major potash producer.
In 1994 Schmitz moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville as the Ben Hill Griffin Jr. Eminent Scholar and professor of food and resource economics. Founded in 1853, the university is Florida's flagship public institution and includes a land-grant agricultural college. He later became professor emeritus there. His research output included more than 300 papers and 32 books, according to a conference biography, and his work covered trade, agricultural policy, and welfare economics.
In 1970 Schmitz and David Seckler published Mechanized agriculture and social welfare: the case of the tomato harvester in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. The article argued that the harvester improved overall economic well-being in California, while the gains went mostly to farmers and consumers and the main losers were farmworkers. It became one of the most discussed papers from the Berkeley department and was at the center of a major public controversy.
Schmitz co-authored, with Richard E. Just and Darrell L. Hueth, the welfare economics texts Applied Welfare Economics and Public Policy (1982) and its successor The Welfare Economics of Public Policy (2005). Reviewers have treated the later volume as a standard reference for applied welfare analysis in environmental economics, international trade, and agricultural policy.
(Co-authored with Troy G. Schmitz and Charles B. Moss and ...)
2005
Import tariffs and price formation in the world wheat market
(Co-authored with C. Carter and published in the American ...)
1979
Farmland accumulation and prices
(Co-authored with H. Shalit and published in the American ...)
1982
Membership
Schmitz was a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association, a professional society founded in 1910 as the American Farm Economic Association that brings together economists working on agriculture, food, and natural resources. In 1985 he became the association's youngest fellow.
He was also a Fellow of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, which supports research and professional exchange in agricultural economics in Canada.
Fellow
American Agricultural Economics Association
,
United States
1985
Fellow
Canadian Agricultural Economics Society
,
Canada
Personality
Colleagues and friends described him as warm and larger than life, and as an energetic participant in economic debate.
Connections
Schmitz married Helen Carole Anderson at St. Joseph's church in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on July 16, 1966. The couple had five children: Troy Gordon, Katrina Laur-Ayn Funk, Andre Lloyd, Evan Denis, and Dean Michael.
His son Troy G. Schmitz became an agribusiness scholar at Arizona State University and co-authored research with his father, including a 2005 study of the economic impact of StarLink corn. Colleagues recalled that long evening discussions sometimes ended with songs, accompanied by his wife on piano or by his son on guitar.
He was the youngest of his siblings, and several of them, including his brothers Peter and Jacques and his sisters Louise Enns, Dora Froehlich, and Elsie Froehlich, predeceased him.
Father:
Andreas Schmitz
Mother:
Katherine Schmitz
child:
Katrina Laur-Ayn Funk Schmitz
child:
Andre Lloyd Schmitz
child:
Evan Denis Schmitz
child:
Dean Michael Schmitz
Wife:
Helen Carole Anderson
Son:
Troy Gordon Schmitz
Agribusiness scholar at Arizona State University who co-authored research with his father, including a 2005 study of the economic impact of StarLink corn.
References
Andrew Schmitz obituary, Moose Jaw Today
Obituary describing his birth in Central Butte, his family and farm upbringing, his University of Saskatchewan degrees, his marriage in 1966, his consulting work, and his honors and awards.
2026
Andy Schmitz dies
News report on the death of the agricultural economist in Gainesville, Florida, shortly after his 86th birthday, covering his Saskatchewan background, degrees, honors, and consulting work.
Remembering Andy Schmitz
Tribute by a University of California, Berkeley colleague describing his career in the Berkeley department, his 1994 move to the University of Florida, and his mentoring of younger economists.
Andrew Schmitz (Q41800948)
Reference data entry recording his birth year, birthplace, education at the University of Wisconsin, and employment at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Florida.
