Teaching Sustainability in Agribusiness Venture Management

Eric Micheels

My Why

I teach courses in the area of farm and agribusiness management in the department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan. In my courses, I strive to introduce students to practical tools that they will be able to apply to their firms when they leave university. In these courses, I work to create a collaborative learning environment where students are able to work with new topics and share how these may or may not apply to their own experiences.

Student and employer  interest in the topic of sustainability is experiencing continued growth (Amin-Chaudhry, Young, & Afshari, 2022; Bollani, Bonadonna, & Peira, 2019). Business planning courses  within agricultural economics and agribusiness departments provide a good opportunity to integrate the concepts of economic, environmental, and social sustainability into the curriculum. Further, instruction in business planning is an important part of many agribusiness programs across North America.

While business planning courses contribute to a well-rounded agribusiness curriculum, they also provide students with an opportunity to develop business plans that they can use to launch real ventures after graduation. Many of the students in our program come from family farms where integrating the next generation into the current farm business requires careful consideration. Business plans that focus on ways the next generation will create value for the farm  (and its customers) can help farm families both increase managerial capacity and increase managerial (or labour) costs, which may help \ ensure these farms grow sustainably.

Agribusiness Venture Management  (AREC 495) fits within the area of entrepreneurship education and training, which Rashid (2019) suggested can be directly linked to several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, outcomes of successful entrepreneurial ventures can contribute to

• SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth),
• SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), and
• SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production)

Depending on the entrepreneur, it can also indirectly contribute to

• SDG 1 (No Poverty),
• SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and
• SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

Additionally, as interest in social entrepreneurship and the SDGs increases, studies have developed frameworks to examine how well small- and medium-sized enterprises align with  the SDG goals  (Horne, Recker, Michelfelder, Jay, & Kratzer, 2020).

In this way, Agribusiness Venture Management  (and other courses in this area) can provide students with both the tools and the understanding required to bring together different content areas in the BSc Agribusiness degree (financial management, marketing, sales, etc.) within the context of new business development . At the same time, this course provides students with an understanding of sustainability as both an opportunity for bringing a product or service to market and for a  means to contribute to the broader economy .

What I did on my course

In the following sections, I outline the learning outcomes and instructional strategies I used in the last two offerings of AREC 495. I describe my views of how business planning contributes to sustainable growth and development and how the learning outcomes in this course align with sustainable growth.  I will also illustrate two assessments I use in this course, along with how the use of guest speakers can raise expectations for students as well as provide them with exemplars of entrepreneurs in the agri-food industry in Saskatoon.

Learning Outcomes

With AREC 495 being a business planning course, it contributes to several SDGs indirectly. For example, being able to develop economically viable businesses relates to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) through the focus on the development and analysis of business plans for farms and rural businesses.  Being able to identify business opportunities that relate to the green economy (using fewer resources, reducing GHGs) or developing agricultural and rural tourism businesses that provide economic opportunity for owners and rural residents would increase GDP for local and provincial economies, which is very much in line with SDG 8. To that end, in the course, the students worked towards the following learning objectives :

• Develop a business plan for a real or hypothetical firm operating in food and agriculture.
• Outline key skills and capabilities needed to be successful in business development.
• Organize resources and relationships within a business plan to promote the successful development of a new venture.
• Evaluate the feasibility of new ventures.
• Critique the strengths and weaknesses of different business plans.

Teaching Practices

During the course, students worked in small groups (two to five students) to identify an opportunity for a business in the food and agriculture industry and then worked to develop a draft business plan that outlined the steps needed to start this business. Most of the plans developed for this course have been aspirational, however a handful in the last three years could have been started relatively quickly.

Guest Speakers: I have focused on bringing the industry into the classroom through a variety of guest speakers from Saskatoon and surrounding areas who share their experiences related to owning and managing their own business. These speakers have all been tangentially related to agriculture and occupy different segments of the agricultural value chain.

I give the speakers the entire class period to use as they wish within a set of parameters. I provide the speakers with an overview of the course and what we have covered in depth, so that their presentations are at the appropriate level to encourage greater engagement and discussion. Typically, the speakers present for 40 to 50 minutes with the remainder of the 80-minute class given to students for questions.

Learning Activities

Business Plan Project: Students form groups of two to five   students and work together to identify a business opportunity to explore and develop through the creation of a comprehensive business plan. As my students are predominantly from the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan, the opportunities identified have largely been in the agricultural industry.

Business plan development is an important skill in all businesses, but they are underused in agricultural businesses, particularly farm businesses. A 2020 report commissioned by Farm Management Canada stated that only 21% of respondents regularly follow a written business plan (Watson & Rollin, 2020). The two main reasons why respondents said they do not use business plans are:

• They do not know what to include in them (21%)
• They perceive the development of a business plan as too daunting (21%).

Hopefully, this course will help students who will be going back to the farm to understand what to include a business plan and show them that the task is achievable if broken up into more manageable sections (like most things in life).

One of the ways I make the development of a business plan more manageable is to structure the assessments as building blocks. For instance, the first and second assessments show how the business will provide value to their customers. As we move along in the term, we focus on the resources and capabilities required. Groups work to identify the assets or partnerships that would be needed to procure inputs, develop the products, and establish marketing channels to move the product or service from idea to reality. Finally, we develop draft marketing and financial plans.

I stress that these versions are drafts as things will change. It is important for students to understand that business plans are not meant to be indelible and that it is common for businesses to revise plans when market conditions shift and failure to do so may be catastrophic for businesses that are not able to adapt.

Coffee with a Business Leader: Another assignment is an interview with a business owner from their area or who works in an industry they are interested in.

Students work individually to identify and interview a business owner to get a different perspective on the challenges and opportunities of owning and managing their own business.

Students develop an initial set of questions to ask the business owner, and these questions are peer reviewed by another member of the class. This gives the students an opportunity to refine their questions and to think about potential follow-up questions to dig a little deeper into the challenges that these business owners are describing. Students record their interviews (with the consent of the business owner) and can either submit the audio recording or a transcript of the interview.

Following the interview, students are required to complete a reflective assessment. It is always fun to read these as many students comment that, while they initially viewed this assignment as daunting and perhaps unrelated to their work, they found that discussing business ownership with actual business owners is a productive use of their time.

Assessment Strategies

I use both formative and summative assessment strategies throughout the course. Assessment strategies focus on both the process of creating a business plan and the development of the business plan itself.

Formative assessment occurs through smaller assignments, where students work on the components of the business plan. For example, in Assignment 1, I ask students to briefly describe their idea for their business and to conduct an environmental scan of the competitive landscape.

Following four smaller assignments, students work to combine the components into a first draft of a business plan, which is then submitted for comments. At this stage, the groups would have received feedback on the different components of the business plan, so hopefully some of these earlier comments have been addressed in the first draft. However, the benefit of the first draft is it provides one more opportunity for the instructor to provide feedback on the different components and the draft as a whole. Following feedback and corrections, a final draft is submitted and a short presentation on the business plan given to the class.

At this point in the term, I do not expect that the business idea will be finalized, nor do I expect that the environmental scan will be perfect. That being said, there is a benefit to having a starting point for the business idea that can serve as a “straw man,” a prototype solution using incomplete information and ideas that will be further refined as the team works through the market analysis and financial projections of the proposed business.

For all assignments, feedback is provided on broader issues that can be addressed and clarified in the final business plan and presentation.

The summative assessment is not provided to the student team until the final business plan is presented to the class and submitted to the instructors. Business plans have different components, and each component is important to the coherence of the plan and the confidence a reader will place in the ability of the team to achieve the goals set forth in the plan. As such, I use criterion-referenced grading to measure student performance against a set of predetermined criteria—were different components present, and to what degree were claims and assumptions within the different components supported by sources and references. (Nilson, 2003).

The Implications

Through this course, students integrate various components of different content areas within their degree into a complete business plan for a farm or rural business. As many of the students in Agribusiness Venture Management come from a farm and rural background, many of the business plans generated through my time teaching this course have focused on improving the economic well-being of themselves and others in their communities through the development of farm and farm-service businesses.

Through the business plan assignment, students are able to learn and apply economic and management concepts to the development of a financially feasible farm or rural business. While government policies may help foster rural business development that may align with SDG 8, it is the actual farm entrepreneur that must develop the plan for an economically sustainable business. Through this course, we provide students with an opportunity to develop a very good first draft of a business plan that they can use to solicit funding from a variety of sources if they do decide to pursue these ventures.

My Reflections

When reflecting on teaching Agribusiness Venture Management, I am struck by the creativity and resiliency of the current cohort of students in our program. On the outside, they do not exhibit signs that they are true believers in the SDGs or environmental regulations to manage and mitigate climate change, the business ideas that are generated are very much so focused on developing resilient farm businesses in the face of climate change and in providing economically viable services to farmers and ranchers who are interested in minimizing production costs while increasing agricultural production.

Lessons Learned

One of the main lessons that I have learned through my time teaching Agribusiness Venture Management is that a sustainable business model does not have to be a radical business model. This is an idea that I have begun to stress to the students in my Winter 2024 offering of this course. The ideas that they come up with do not need to be ‘new to the world.’ Many businesses have been stated based on the idea that if something was a good idea somewhere else, it is possible it is a good idea in your location. Through this course, students are able to work through those ideas to actually determine the financial feasibility of their ideas, and to determine if investing in that idea would result in economic growth for themselves and their communities.

Conclusions

Within this course, I give students opportunities to master ideation, market assessment, market development, market planning, and financial forecasting. These skills are important within the Saskatchewan agri-food sector in general and are vitally important skills for agricultural entrepreneurs.

Using both formative and summative assessment strategies, this course provides students with opportunities to work on different components of business plans, while also learning how to receive and incorporate feedback into a final document.

References

Amin-Chaudhry, A., Young, S., & Afshari, L. (2022). Sustainability motivations and challenges in the Australian agribusiness. Journal of Cleaner Production, 361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132229

Bollani, L., Bonadonna, A., & Peira, G. (2019). The millennials’ concept of sustainability in the food sector. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102984

Dencker, J. C., Bacq, S., Gruber, M., & Haas, M. (2021). Reconceptualizing necessity entrepreneurship: A contextualized framework of entrepreneurial processes under the condition of basic needs. Academy of Management Review, 46(1), 60-79.

Dhahri, S., Slimani, S., & Omri, A. (2021). Behavioral entrepreneurship for achieving the sustainable development goals. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120561

Horne, J., Recker, M., Michelfelder, I., Jay, J., & Kratzer, J. (2020). Exploring entrepreneurship related to the sustainable development goals – mapping new venture activities with semi-automated content analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production, 242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118052

Nilson, L. B. (2003). Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors. Book (Vol. 2nd).

Rashid, L. (2019). Entrepreneurship education and sustainable development goals: A literature review and a closer look at fragile states and technology-enabled approaches. Sustainability (Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195343

Watson, H., & Rollin, D. (2020). Healthy Minds, Healthy Farms Exploring the Connection between Mental Health and Farm Business Management Final Report. Retrieved from https://fmc-gac.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/finalreport.pdf