U of S College of Agriculture to offer Agribusiness Degree

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

Starting in September 2006, students registered at the University of Saskatchewan will be able to work toward a Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness degree, according to Associate Professor Tom Allen of the Department of Agricultural Economics.

“Officially, the program starts next September, but we are already having a significant number of students changing their course load in January to be able to come into it.

“We have been trying to increase offerings in agribusiness at the College for years, decades really. In the mid-nineties, we looked at it seriously. We set up a committee, of which I was a co-ordinator, and we ended at that time developing a minor—a six-credit course—in agribusiness. It became almost immediately the most popular minor in the College. We kept hearing from past students and employers that we should be offering more business training to our students.”

Allen points out that more than 50 per cent of students in agriculture schools end up in marketing, sales and other types of very applied business activities, according to a study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture and Purdue University.

“Our studies with our students found the same thing. The majority of our graduates go into some form of management position. We looked further into it a couple of years ago with a more in-depth exploration of what our students do after graduation. We also conducted a major project where we hired a research assistant to survey the 50 largest agribusinesses in Western Canada to get a more accurate picture of needs.”

What emerged at all levels was a desire among these agribusinesses to access graduates with more business training.

“What they were saying to us is they want agriculture science, but they also want the business training—and historically they have hired the agriculture students first, only to teach them the business afterwards,” Allen says. “More recently, we have witnessed the reverse: a trend to hire business students who would then be taught some agriculture. What they would have preferred would have been to have students that have both the business and the agriculture training.”

Allen explains how, two years ago, the College of Agriculture addressed the situation head on.

“We put a committee together and we started the planning and application process to develop a program that has a very large component offered through the College of Commerce, starting at the second year level. We have a certain amount of Commerce courses that are required, plus in the third and fourth years, students are able to access the upper year Commerce courses to complement their upper year agriculture courses. It is a good blend. I think it will be the preferred degree for any of the students that go into the agricultural businesses to work.”

When asked if this is a Canadian first, Allen admits that others – at the Universities of Guelph and Manitoba, for instance – have been offering this specialty for some time.

“We are not industry leaders on this one. Agriculture has changed immensely in Saskatchewan. We have to be much more market aware. We have to be knowledgeable about trade issues. We can’t just be producers. We are good at producing commodities, but now we also have to be marketers; we have to manage these businesses.

“If you think of it, the farm is not small business anymore. Many farms exceed the definition of small businesses—they are so big. You need the management skills and definitely, when you start looking at the whole value-chain, we’ve got connections between parts of the value-chain that weren’t there before. Business skills are an essential component if you want to be successful.”

Allen is pleased with the response from the community so far. He and his colleagues have been fielding calls from parents and prospective students from around Western Canada who had heard about this development, and already new students have expressed a desire to sign up.

For more information, contact:

Tom Allen
CIBC Scholar in Agricultural Entrepreneurship
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-4012