AE 420 - Advanced Farm and Ag Business Management

3 Credits
Outline Effective Date: Academic Year 2025/2026
Revised Date: Aug 15, 2025
Date Approved: Aug 15, 2025

Lecture Hours: 42

Course Description:
This course prepares students for strategic and managerial decision making by investigating economic models and exploring how the Canadian agriculture economy functions. Working with frameworks that integrate previous course work in finance, marketing, human resources and operations management, students analyze complex business problems and provide recommendations for improvement.

Rationale:
This is a required course for students in the Bachelor of Agriculture Technology degree program. The goal is to provide students with frameworks to analyze the elements of strategic farm management through the development and assessment of various strategic management tools such as dashboards and scorecards.

Students complete comprehensive strategic analysis including financial and non-financial indicators as well as lag and lead indicators. This includes advanced risk management, investment decision making, financial review, strategic marketing, strategic human resource management and internal process assessment.

Prerequisites: AE 230
Corequisites: None

Course Learning Outcomes:
A student who successfully completes the course will have reliably demonstrated the ability to

1.examine the components of a strategic plan and transfer these understandings to new contexts within agribusiness.

2.assess the interactions between finance, marketing, operations and human resources and relate the impact of these interactions to the success of a farm enterprise.

a.Finance: evaluate financial performance and generate recommendations to improve results

b.Marketing: assess market and customer needs considering current global and domestic market trends

c.Operations: discuss the internal processes necessary to identify emerging strategic opportunities

d.Human Resources: describe how to effectively manage personnel policies, practices and resources as well as identify relevant regulations and legislation.

3.discuss and synthesize how to think strategically about business decisions.

4.critique the tools used to acquire targeted data enabling informed analysis and problem solving within the business model.

5.explain the key concepts of advanced risk management before comparing and contrasting tools to manage those risks.

Required Resource Materials:
Partial textbook: Barry, P., & Ellinger, P.; (2012). Financial Management in Agriculture

(7th ed.). Chapter Nine. Pearson Education Inc.

Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council (CAHRC), HR Toolkit, Online Resource.

Various online articles and publications as directed by instructors.

Optional Resource Materials:
None

Conduct of Course:
This course consists of 42 hours of lectures. Classroom instructor includes lectures and videos. Lectures, discussions, illustrations, assignments, group work and testing are used in the delivery of this course.

Classroom and laboratory attendance is considered vital to the learning process and as significant to the students’ evaluation as examinations and reports.

Students having a combination of excused and/or unexcused absence of 20 percent or higher for the scheduled course hours are required to withdraw and automatically receive a “RW” (required withdrawal) for the course, regardless of any other evaluation results. (RW is a failing grade.).
An excused absence is one that is verified with your instructor. Verification should be prior to the absence or the next class day following the absence. Verification of the absence may take the form of a note from your doctor/College nurse regarding illness, or a note from another instructor regarding a field trip or other activity, or authorization by your instructor. An unexcused absence is anything NOT verified by the instructor prior to the absence or the next class day following the absence.

NOTE: Any exceptions to the above attendance policy (e.g. timetable conflicts, work-related issues) must be approved in writing by the Department Chair prior to the beginning of the course.

It is the students’ responsibility to know their own absentee record.

Normal hours are 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., with potential for evening courses, exams or extended field trips. Students are expected to be available for classes during these times.

Content of Course:

Introduction & Assessment of what “Strategic” means.
Risk Management in Agriculture
Introduction to the Balanced Scorecard: a strategic management tool.
- Perspective One: Learning & Growth = Strategic human resource management
- Perspective Two: Financial = Strategic financial management and investment analysis
- Perspective Three: Customer = Strategic marketing assessment and plan
- Perspective Four: Internal Processes = Operational assessment to identify strategicopportunities.
Building a Strategic Plan & Strategy Map for a farm enterprise.

Course Assessments:

Assignments	45%
Exams	30%
Final Project	25%
Total	100%

Official final grades will be available on My Lakeland. Grades posted in D2L should be considered interim grades.
“Lakeland College is committed to the highest academic standards. Students are expected to be familiar with Lakeland College policies and to abide by these policies. Violations of these policies are considered to be serious and may result in suspension or expulsion from the College.”

Course Pass Requirements:
A minimum grade of D (50%) (1.00) is required to pass this course.

Letter	F	D	D+	C-	C	C+	B-	B	B+	A-	A	A+
Percent Range	0-49	50-52	53-56	57-59	60-64	65-69	70-74	75-79	80-84	85-89	90-94	95-100
Points	0.00	1.00	1.30	1.70	2.00	2.30	2.70	3.00	3.30	3.70	4.00	4.00

Students must maintain a cumulative grade of C (GPA - Grade Point Average of 2.00) in order to qualify to graduate.

Every effort has been made to ensure that information in this course outline is accurate at the time of publication. Lakeland College reserves the right to change courses if it becomes necessary so that course content remains relevant.

In such cases, the instructor will give students clear and timely notice of changes.

No part of this course outline may be reproduced in any form or resold without written permission from Lakeland College.

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