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Harvard Business School coined “agribusiness”

The director of Harvard Business School’s Agribusiness program tells Brownfield many people are surprised the program is offered at the Ivy League school.

Mary Shelman says the term “agribusiness” actually originated there.

“It was coined by my colleague Ray Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Business School.  He wrote a book in 1957 called ‘The Concept of Agribusiness.’  So basically we can claim the field.”

Speaking at the Women In Ag Summit Monday in Minneapolis, Shelman called the agribusiness program offered at Harvard case-based.

“There are no lectures or textbooks, and every session is a real-life case study.”

She says executives from all over the world and from all parts of the supply chain participate in the program, primarily to study trends

“So, my role is to think a lot about what those cases are that we should be writing.  We’ll write cases on big companies like Nestle, Cargill or Bunge.  Also input companies like Monsanto and Syngenta.  We’ll also write a case like on Lufa Farms, which is a greenhouse on the top of a roof in Montreal.”

Shelman says the students then try to better understand how the supply chain works, and how it’s changing.