Agribusiness Management, 4 edition

Book Preface

This is an exciting time to be involved in the food and agribusiness industries. International markets are an inseparable reality for agribusiness managers. Information technology and the Internet make entirely new models for conducting business both possible and practical. Biotechnological developments raise exciting and challenging business and policy issues. Relationships among players in this system have continued to evolve and, as a result, the food production and marketing system is far more complex and interrelated today than it was a mere decade ago. Add to this the challenge of feeding an estimated nine billion people on earth by 2050 — and agriculture and agribusiness will continue to be the nexus of
attention! This rapidly changing, highly volatile, international, high-technology, consumer-focused world is the one in which today’s food and agribusiness managers operate. This fourth edition of Agribusiness Management was written to help prepare students and managers for a successful career in this new world of food and fi ber production and marketing.
What’s new
The basic objective of this text has not changed through four editions: to give students and managers a fundamental understanding of the key concepts needed to successfully manage businesses, adding value to farm products and/or providing inputs to production agriculture. While there are many concepts in this book that will apply to the farm or production agriculture business, the text is focused on the food and input supply sectors of the food production and marketing system.
This new edition of Agribusiness Management uses four specifi c approaches to help readers develop and enhance their capabilities as agribusiness managers. First, it offers a contemporary focus that refl ects the issues that food and agribusiness managers face both today and likely will face tomorrow. Specifi cally, food sector fi rms and larger agribusiness fi rms receive more attention in this edition, refl ecting their increasing importance as employers of food and agribusiness program graduates. Second, the book presents conceptual material in a pragmatic way with illustrations and examples that will help the reader understand how a specifi c concept works in practice. Third, it has a decision-making emphasis, providing managerial tools that readers will fi nd useful when making decisions in the
contemporary business environment. Finally, it offers a pertinent set of discussion questions and case studies that will allow the reader to apply the material covered in real-world situations. organization and international agribusiness management, which is an area no contemporary book on agribusiness can ignore. In the third section, we start our discussion on the four functional areas of management — marketing, fi nance, supply chain, and human resources.
Ultimately, all business activity revolves around the customer, and the text refl ects thiscustomer-oriented philosophy. The marketing management section has been substantially revised to refl ect the current thinking in this area. The fi nance section also received a complete overhaul, and includes chapters on fi nancial reporting and analysis, with increased emphasis on credit analysis and management. The fi fth section, supply chain management, was completely rewritten to refl ect the current thinking in this area. Finally, the human resource section was re-written, again to refl ect what we now know about managing people.
Preparing for a new food and agribusiness market requires the application of concepts and tools to current situations. This edition of Agribusiness Management ends every chapter with discussion questions that are either new or have been revised for this text. Also included are cases that cover a variety of situations and types of fi rm. We feel you will fi nd this mix of cases to be a distinguishing feature of the book.
The bottom-line on this fourth edition of Agribusiness Management : this book is contemporary, solid on the fundamentals, practical and applicable. It provides students and adult learners with an essential understanding of what it takes to be a successful agribusiness manager in today’s rapidly evolving, highly unpredictable marketplace.
More specifi cally, the opening section of the text has been completely re-organized to help students better understand the food and agribusiness marketplace, as well as management