MSc, Postgraduate Diploma/Certificate in Agribusiness for Development ,University of London-Detailed Syllabus

C138 Marketing for Small Agribusinesses

Markets are a key component of development. You will analyse the marketing challenges for micro- and small enterprises within a broad range of natural resource product and service sectors, focusing on how markets function, marketing management, and policy measures to support small firms and business services.

C116 Economics and institutions for development

You will gain an understanding of the economic behaviour of people and firms, and the interactions between them, and between institutions and national economies in development processes. Development concepts, standard economic models and their relation with each other are introduced. You will explore the roles of institutions in economic exchange and resource allocation, and their contribution (or hindrance) to more efficient and equitable resource allocation and to development.

C112
Entrepreneurship for the agri-food industry
Reviews the management concepts for firms within the agrifood industries of developing countries with a focus on entrepreneurism. Students are encouraged to explore entrepreneurship and the creation and management of new business enterprises. The course provides a framework for assessing business opportunities and the public policy constraints within which business must operate. It provides an overview of the management of human and financial business resources, each of which is explored subsequently in specialist courses. A key output of the course is the preparation of the business plan.

C111
Supply chain management
Introduces a business philosophy, linking primary producers to final consumers to achieve competitive advantage. The course includes both practical aspects of the delivery process and theoretical contributions from the social sciences, in relation to developed and developing countries.

C10
Agricultural trade and policy
Introduces neo-classical trade theory and examines trade theory as it applies to a range of interventions in trade, in particular, agricultural trade. The course also introduces standard agricultural policy analysis tools, before a review of current issues affecting international trade in agriculture.

C49
Financial and management accounting
Considers the concepts and methods of business management in the food industry. This course emphasises the importance of the ability of managers to interpret both financial reports and internal management accounting documents.

C131
Management in rural development
Considers the management and organisation of interventions to promote rural development. The course examines the scope and demands of rural development management, dimensions of rural development, the relevance of management theories of organisations and management, and the changing roles of the state, the private sector and civil society in rural development.

C47
Organisational behaviour and human resource management
This course is about getting the best out of people at work in a changing world. New business structures are emerging, that are having to adapt to new circumstances, such as global internet and intranet systems in different cultural settings. Other organisational topics covered include working in teams, managing change and human resources policy development.

C134
Project planning and management
Covers the planning and management of public and private investment in the agricultural sector. Students learn economic concepts for project identification, preparation, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation, and the methods of logical framework, financial and economic cost benefit analysis, and social and environmental assessment.

C130
Rural development
Gives an economics perspective on issues and methods in rural development, the role of rural development in poverty reduction, roles of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors and of markets and governments in development, impacts of new technology, agricultural research and extension policy and methods, and rural financial markets.

C35
Socio-economics of rural livelihoods
Analyses the decisions facing smallholder farmers in managing their activities and resources. The course examines the circumstances and objectives of peasants and socio-economic theories that describe their livelihood strategies, and policy implications arising from this analysis.

C106
Research methods
This module aims to provide an introduction to research methods for environmental studies and covers methods appropriate to environmental science and technology and social science. The principal objectives are to provide: an understanding of how to identify research problems and formulate research questions; an understanding of the various types of data; an understanding of how to review literature; knowledge of how to choose an appropriate experimental or survey design; familiarity with a number of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods; familiarity with methods of data collation and storage; an understanding of the most important uses of statistics in you own field; the ability to appropriately choose basic statistical methods and apply them; basic familiarity with the operation of a spreadsheet package and the ability to use it to do statistics; basic familiarity with the operation of one software package for statistical analysis; understanding of how to interpret statistics from environmental studies; competency in writing-up the results; knowledge of how to write a research proposal.

Please note: this module will be supplied as electronic courseware on CD Rom.