Junior and Senior level Ag Bus. Colorado Agriscience Curriculum
Section: Advanced Agribusiness
Unit: Marketing
Lesson Title: Marketing Overview
AGB11/12.04 - The student will understand the Colorado Ag influences of agricultural economy and its influences Education on the overall economy. Standards and Understand market alternatives. Competencies English Standard 1: Students read and understand a variety of materials. Colorado Model Content English Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing Standard(s): English Standard 5: Students read to locate, select, and make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference, and technological sources. The student will: Student Learning 1. Gain an understanding of global agriculture and how marketing plays a huge role in the Objectives: overall “health” of the world.
(This lesson is a precursor to the marketing lessons. It is meant simply to get students thinking globally and to realize how important agriculture is in the world.)
The objectives below have been replaced with questions to generate a good classroom discussion.
Time: 1-50 minute class periods.
Resource(s): Handouts & access to internet for optional activity
Instructions, Tools, Italicized words are instructions to the teacher; normal style text is suggested Equipment, and script. Supplies: You will need a computer and projector unit if you are going to use the accompanying PowerPoint.
Slide 1 Interest Approach: Read out loud “The Role of Agriculture in the Global Economy” by David Raisbeck. See
Unit 5: Lesson 1: Marketing Overview 1 attachment. Explain that this was an address given to the World Agriculture Forum in 2003. Make sure the class realizes that the BIG PICTURE concepts of his paper are what they should be listening for.
Optional: Share the mission and vision of the World Ag Forum (listed below) and/or let them explore their website.
www.worldagforum.org
Vision:
To empower agriculture so as to “feed” every man, woman and child on earth.
Mission:
To be a catalyst in developing action plans that meet the growing need for food, fiber, fuel and water. As we begin our lesson today you need to have your notebooks out and be prepared to Question 1: take notes on the information that we are going to go over today.
What three things does food trade accomplish? Slide 2
Lowers costs, widens choices and provides more reliable access to supplies.
Explain why agriculture development is necessary to trigger broader, more Question 2: sustainable economic development for most countries. Slide 3
Agriculture development stimulates self-sustaining growth in two ways. First, through rising productivity it increases the incomes of farmers. Second, it releases labor from subsistence farming that can be employed in manufacturing or service activities.
What is the major problem limiting agriculture’s role in the global economy? Slide 4 Question 3: Agricultural trade barriers on average are 10 times higher than industrial trade barriers, and many Ag barriers are prohibitively restricted.
How do the pressures of hunger and poverty result in Ag practices that harm Question 4: the environment? Slide 5
By exhausting the soil’s productivity rather than replenishing it and by forcing agriculture to expand to new lands rather than to use the most productive lands better.
How does technology play a role in all of the world food issues? Slide 6 Question 5: The environment can be more environmentally sustained by adopting productivity and efficiency enhancing technologies.
(Side note: Adopting better technologies is directly linked to the opening of trade opportunities – generating cash for reinvestment and market opportunities for more output.)
Ag productivity and human nutrition can be raised at an affordable cost.
(Side note: Trade barriers sometimes stop the adoption of these positive technology
Unit 5: Lesson 1: Marketing Overview 2 adoptions. For example, fears about the US’s use of genetically modified organizations have created situations where food aid rots on a loading dock, while millions starve, because of fears about eating it.)
Review/Summary: Review by asking which of the five questions above is most affecting global agriculture and hunger issues today.
***Use the Almanac/Encyclopedia Moment throughout the discussion. (Students could be online during the discussion or have books.)
Tap into students’ natural ability to make meaningful connections with new information. f Description With an almanac or encyclopedia in hand, students make connections between what they just learned and topics found in their reference book. The Process
1. Distribute almanacs and/or encyclopedias randomly to students. Ideally, each student would have his or her own reference book, either an almanac or an encyclopedia. Note: It is not important that the letters on the encyclopedia relate specifically to the information just learned. The idea here is for students to make their own connections to unrelated topics. Doing so strengthens the students’ understanding by relating something they are interested in to what they just learned. For example, if the lecture focused on cell division, the students might find in the encyclopedia “automobiles” and make the connection that cells divide in a given order and cars are built in a specific order. If the student had an almanac, he or she might find “tornados” and make the connection that like cells tornados break apart.
2. Time them. Give students 60 to 90 seconds (or whatever amount of time you deem appropriate) to locate a topic and make a connection.
3. Have them share. Students can share their connections verbally in pairs, trios, or to the whole class, or write a quick paragraph describing the connection they made and turn it in.
Application— Have students bring in a recent article that addresses a world event and have Extended them present a summary to the class and explain how that event affects agriculture globally. Make sure they focus on marketing/trade as much as Classroom possible. Activity: Perhaps have a debate on food security vs. energy security.
Application—FFA Share international travel experiences through the FFA and/or other Ag Activity: organizations. Have someone speak who has had an international experience. (I.e. State officer)
Have them write a one page summary on how their SAE affects the people around them Application—SAE globally. Give them time to take a look at what their SAE can or does do for others. Activity:
Unit 5: Lesson 1: Marketing Overview 3 Evaluation: A quiz could be given on the discussion, but this lesson is meant more to stimulate interest students and to have them think more readily how events affect the entire world.
Evaluation Answer N/A Key:
Other:
Unit 5: Lesson 1: Marketing Overview 4