Agribusiness Blueprint
Agribusiness Blueprint is a limited-series podcast about how the modern agribusiness system was built and why the business of agriculture is fundamentally different from every other industry. Hosted by Purdue University’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business, this series tells the stories of the people, ideas and decisions that shaped the modern food and agricultural system, from early entrepreneurs like Johnny Appleseed to the economists, researchers and business leaders who helped define agribusiness as a discipline. Agriculture operates under a unique set of pressures – biological production, weather, global markets, government policy and decentralized decision-making – which forced the industry to develop its own management tools and strategy. This podcast is the story of how that happened and why it matters today.
Agribusiness Blueprint
Latest Episodes
When AgTech Works (and Why)
AgTech has a ketchup sandwich problem. In other words, there's a lot of technology and "innovation" being created, but increasingly, it's technology and innovation that no farmer or agribusiness really wants. It's a ketchup sandwich...
Financing the Farm: Opportunities and Costs
Lending to farmers has always been a difficult proposition. After all, banking and finance are all about managing risk, and agriculture is uniquely resistant to that effort. Today, our current ag finance tools are being tested in new ways, but ...
How to Sell Anything to Farmers
Ag sales have always been a hard sell — quite literally. After all, farmers are conservative spenders, and the people attracted to working in the industry, people who know farmers well (and maybe are farmers themselves), are not exc...
Should Agribusiness Make Talent or Buy It?
Agriculture's labor problem is chronic. But attention is focused on the hands in the field, even while another talent crisis looming, and new tech and tools (even AI) seem unlikely to solve it. Today, hosts Sarah Mock and Trey Malon...
How to Diagnose a Wicked Agribusiness Crisis
The Iran War is hitting American farmers from multiple directions — not just through higher fertilizer costs, but through the rising price of diesel and gasoline too. But this is far from agriculture's first energy crisis. In fact, ...