47090486-5Evaluating your Farm Business: Farm Enterprise Analysis & Marketing
Course Information
Description
This course builds on course 47090481-1, 47090481-2, and 47090481-3 by demonstrating how to enterprise budgets and partial analysis to determine where your farm business is making or losing money.  Students will use these tools to develop pricing and marketing strategies for their farm businesses. This course requires at least one year of operation under a complete business plan.  
Total Credits
Course Competencies
  1. Develop Enterprise Budgets, Marketing, and Pricing
    Criteria
    Learner investigates components of enterprise budgets
    Learner projects 3 ways to improve enterprise profitability
    Learner manipulates case farm example enterprise budgets to improve profitability
    Learner projects enterprise budgets for own farm operation

  2. Examine Enterprise Accounting Systems Criteria
    Criteria
    Learner identifies treatment of regular income and expense categories for enterprise accounting
    Learner recognizes method to pass overhead expense items to each enterprise in the accounting system
    Learner utilizes enterprise accounting reports to assess changes in the business (plan)

  3. Consider Changes to Business Plan based on enterprise analysis
    Criteria
    Learner completes enterprise analysis utilizing accounting software to split enterprises
    Learner utilizes analysis results to evaluate changes to own farm business plan
    Learner uses benchmark analysis report to ensure business competitiveness

  4. Using the Partial Budgeting technique to make minor changes in business operation
    Criteria
    Learner explore partial budget format
    Learner identifies circumstances to use partial budgeting technique
    Learner recognizes profitability and cash flow outcomes to partial budget analysis

  5. Using Cost of Production Figures and Direct Marketing Your Product
    Criteria
    Learner compares direct and commodity marketing advantages and disadvantages
    Learner recognizes characteristics of successful direct marketers
    Learner discovers direct marketing methods
    Learner uses previously calculated cost of production information to estimate necessary price of product mark up and gross margin
    Learner explores potential direct market buying population

  6. Formulate Commodity Marketing Plan
    Criteria
    Learner investigates futures marketing of commodities
    Learner evaluates forward pricing techniques to limit price risk in the farm business
    Learner compares values of using marketing “consultant” versus self-learning and using commodity futures marketing tools

This Outline is under development.