Goals and Objectives

The course is highly oriented toward identifying financial & economic problems, causes & possible solutions and evaluation and selection of possible solutions through financial and economic analyses. The overall goals are: 1) To improve the student&Mac226;s economic decision-making ability. 2) To provide entrepreneurial horticulture majors with the skills essential for starting and/or managing successful, sustainable horticulture businesses.

Business management is the essence of this course. Students will come to understand the basic economic concepts and vocabulary, the functioning of the global market, and sound economic decision-making. The term project (developing a business plan) will teach students how to evaluate the financial & economic feasibility of a proposed venture and to persuade others of its viability. The instructor&Mac226;s extension experience will provide examples of relevant, practical applications of the concepts introduced.

All examples of the economic and business concepts introduced in lectures and utilized in the term project will be from case studies and the personal experience of the instructor.

• Excel
  
• FinPack - Financial Management
  
  

Upper division or graduate status

Kay, R. D. and W. M. Edwards: Farm Management (McGraw-Hill, Inc. 3rd ed., 1994)

None

None

None

The course is organized around four major topics:

using and developing accounting reports, income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets to understand and describe the performance of a firm 



using costs & returns studies to analyze the economic and financial feasibility of projected or existing enterprises 



acquiring the managing investment capital, bank credit, land and labor, and



creating a strategic or "whole-farm" or business plan.

I. Financial Statements: Profitability, Liquidity, and Solvency

• What is Management?
  
• Management Information Systems
  
• The Balance Sheet & its Analysis
  
• The Income Statement & its Analysis
  

II. Budgeting:

• Cost Concepts
  
• Enterprise Budgeting
  
• Partial Budgeting
  
• Whole Farm Planning
  
• Introduction to Final Project
  
• Cash Flow Budgeting
  

III. Economic Analysis and Resource Management

• Managing Risk and Uncertainty
  
• Investment Analysis
  
• Business Analysis
  
• Capital and the Use of Credit
  
• Land: Control and Use
  
• Labor Management
  
• Machinery Management
  

IV. Wrap-Up

• Management in the Future
  
  

Chapter summaries (10%), Midterms (25%), Partial Budget Presentation (10%), Final Project (25%), Final Examination (20%), Participation & Use of Excel (10%).

Kent Fleming


Carol Ferguson