AREC 428 - Agricultural Business Management

Prerequisite

AREC 305 (Agricultural and Resource Enterprise Analysis); AREC 310 (Agricultural Marketing); senior standing.

Description

This course is designed to integrate skills and competencies from the agricultural economics curriculum into a cohesive decision making system that includes marketing, financial, operations/logistics and human resource management. Students completing the course will have a deeper knowledge of these core skills and a sound understanding of how these skills interact and influence one another.

Course Outcomes:

• Apply skills and competencies from the agriculture economics curriculum into an integrated decision framework applied.
• In a small group, complete an intensive examination of strategic, financial and market position of an existing agribusiness within the context capstone project.
• Define an economic problem for the existing agribusiness, propose alternatives, assess the feasibility of alternatives with appropriate methods, interpret and communicate results to a broad audience.
• Foster professional development by interacting/collaborating with business professionals in defining the goals of the capstone project, choosing methods and communicating results.

Project: A significant portion of the course asks students to develop an in-depth analysis of an existing agribusiness. This is a team project, and the team must find data to perform necessary strategic planning, financial, production and market analysis on their agribusiness. The project’s output will include an oral presentation and formal written report. At least one portion of the report must be a rigorous quantitative analysis of a critical management issue for the business. Periodic assignments during the semester will serve as components for the business project, and groups will be asked to present portions of these projects throughout the semester.

Colorado State University is transitioning from RamCT (WebCT platform) to RamCT Blackboard. This course is part of the RamCT Blackboard Pilot project being conducted in Spring 2012. Read more about the pilot project »

This course can be applied towards:

• Agricultural Business (B.S.)

Instructors

James Pritchett
(970) 491-5496
james.pritchett@colostate.edu

Ph.D. University of Minnesota

Pritchett is an associate professor at Colorado State University. His research and outreach effort targets applied economic issues important to stakeholders in Colorado agriculture and throughout the West.

His recent focus is water resources: how farms might make the best use of limited water resources, the economic activity generated by irrigated agriculture in rural regional economies, and perceptions that households have for water use. Additionally, effort has been invested in understanding if crop insurance is an effective risk management tool for dryland wheat farmers, the economics of animal disease, and creating business plans for small and medium sized businesses.

His research has been supported by the USDA-NRI competitive grants program, the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Colorado’s Agriculture Experiment Station.