CAN entrepreneurship be taught? That was the rhetorical question posed by US agricultural academic Randy Westgren on a recent visit to Melbourne.
"I hope so because I'm teaching it," Professor Westgren, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Missouri told his audience at a lunch presented by the Marcus Oldham College Centre for the Study of Rural Australia.
Participants in the four-module course, taught by Prof Westgren (pictured), designed around the agricultural and food sector, have ranged in age from 22 to 72.
The first thing they are taught is "opportunity recognition".
Prof Westgren said this involved identifying trends at the "other end of the supply chain" and the opportunities available in building a business venture around it.
As part of the course, they are taught marketing and finance "because the last thing we want them to do is enter a business and lose it".
They are also taught the economics of contracts, which Prof Westgren said kept them from making errors in forming contractual relationships with their customers and suppliers.
"In the end, every one of them has to produce a venture plan describing what it is they are doing with their business whether it is starting one or taking the business they are in and doing one thing new and unique that is innovative," he said.
The course participants are also taken on tours to meet other farm or agri-food entrepreneurs so they can discuss with them and understand "how things work and don't work".
Of the 62 who have completed their venture plans, 47 are farming and 15 of those have been for less than a year.
Prof Westgren said entrepreneurship was about innovation, which he believed was "the engine for the advancement for our rural economy" and being responsive to consumers interests.
"The fastest growing segment of consumer demand in the US right now are locavores, those seeking locally produced product," he said.
Prof Westgren said producers can't price discriminate by getting people to pay more.
"We're not allowed to do that. So we have to be a bit cleverer," he said. "One of the forms of entrepreneurship is identifying new market opportunities. So we see this new segment developing – the demand for organic meat say."
From there, a scheme could be developed from the farm, which took the product through to distributing it to customers to meet their needs.
"If you're one of those producers trying to meet this consumer need and you can't find somebody in the middle to do the distribution you may have to do it yourself," Prof Westgren said.
"It may not be so much the engineering of the product itself as the engineering of the business model we use to capture more of that value of the consumer end of the supply web."
Prof Westgren gave several examples of successful US farmer and agri-food entrepreneurs.
One was a dairy farmer, Leroy Shatto, from Kansas City. Five years ago, he was running 160 dairy cows, which made him insufficient income.
Rather than just increase the size of his herd to sell more cheap milk, he researched some ideas for about a year and opted to produce and sell milk in glass bottles, which the market had dispensed with in the 1960s.
Today, he sells bottled milk in a range of different colours and flavours. He and his wife have set up a store on their farm. Last year, 35,000 visited his farm and bought his product, which now includes cheese, butter and ice-cream.
To cater for the demand he increased his herd to 210 and more recently to 360 cows.
"He's gone from a business that was clearing about $US200,000 a year to one that is clearing about $US2.5 million year," Prof Westgren said.
Email a friend