Free online courseIntroduction to Agribusiness

Course Description

Strengthen your professional skills in farming by understanding how agribusiness really works, from market forces to day-to-day farm decisions. This free online course connects economic fundamentals with practical agribusiness thinking, helping you interpret prices, production choices, and the wider forces shaping agriculture. You will learn to view agriculture not just as production, but as a business system where inputs, outputs, risk, and financial health all matter.

You will start by building a clear foundation in terms and market thinking, including how to read and use simple graphs and how key factors shift supply and demand. From there, the course links agriculture to the broader economy through the idea of scarcity and the role of measurement tools like Gross Domestic Product, with a focus on how agriculture contributes value within an economic system.

As you progress, you will connect those concepts to the real agribusiness channel, seeing how decisions move through the sector and why economic lessons matter beyond textbook definitions. The course also introduces practical risk management through an options market hedging example, showing how agribusiness participants can reduce downside exposure while keeping flexibility—an essential skill when prices and conditions can change quickly.

To support better decision-making on the farm, you will shift into farm business management and recordkeeping, focusing on what financial records communicate and how they guide planning. You will learn how a balance sheet supports understanding of assets, liabilities, and overall financial position, enabling clearer conversations with partners, lenders, and advisors.

Finally, the course ties economics directly to profit-focused choices through input analysis and variable cost decisions. By understanding how inputs relate to output and value, you will be better equipped to evaluate whether an added cost is likely to improve results and contribute to long-term sustainability. By the end, you will have a practical framework for analyzing markets, managing risk, and making business-smart production choices in modern agribusiness.