4.4.12.A.+-Analyze+the+management+practices+in+the+agriculture+business.

**WHAT IS AGRIBUSINESS?**
Agribusiness is the farming and the businesses associated with farming\ (large-scale farming enterprise), such as the processing of farm products, the manufacturing of farm equipment, etc. It was coined in 1955 by John H. Davis, former assistant secretary of agriculture, to describe the new breed of corporations that controlled the entire agricultural process from production to marketing, making deals with individual producers to deliver crops at fixed prices (Wills 2003).


 * BECOMING A BUSINESS **

"Business" may not be the first thing that comes to mind when farming is considered. Before the 20th century, and even into the beginning of the 20th century, farming in an individual fashion was the norm, and the income was poor. Without the technological resources that are available today, how could it be a highly successful business? In the early 1800's a single farmer could only expect to feed about five people. But, modern farming methods were born as years passed, and after the 1940's American agriculture became more industrialized. That is, rather than a "one-farmer-one-farm system", it became a huge corporation. This change was brought about by advances in technology, irrigation, and genetic engineering. The number of individual farm units declined drastically. Around the 1850's, 60 percent of the American population was engaged in agriculture. By 1972, this figure had lowered to 4.6 percent. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, less than 2 percent of Americans were involved in farming. Advances in genetic engineering, as stated earlier, also impacted the change and prosperity of the farming industry (click on the link to find out more about genetic engineering). In addition to technology and genetic engineering, pesticides also played a huge part in increasing farm productivity. Many of the first pesticides were used in World War II, and then found to work in a peaceful manner. By exposing crops to pesticides, for example, DDT, which has been banned for such practice due to environmental issues, insects, or any organism willing to consume the plant, will be killed. By killing crop predators, the productivity and crop yield were greatly increased. Although, similarly to DDT, in recent years it has been discovered that many pesticides pose threats to the environment and have, therefore, been banned. Even with the banning of most of these predator-killing chemicals, farming is much more successful than it was only 50 years ago (Wills 2003).

** MANAGEMENT PRACTICES **
Farmers must make a profit to stay in business, as a result they use many tactics to increase profitably.

One such example is the recently introduced [|PA Dairy Tool] provided by Penn State University. This "tool" aims to help dairy farmers by doing the following: (Information from Dairy and Animal Science) Although this particular set of goals is specifically geared toward dairy farming, farmers of all areas follow identical steps to improve and increase the output of their farm. Farmers search for things they can change and, in turn, improve their farms. They also try to get rid of the most expensive bottlenecks in their particular practice. Lastly, like all people in a business, they search for the most effective ways to increase profitability.
 * Help identify priorities for change
 * Begin a process to eliminate the most costly bottlenecks in a dairy operation
 * Demonstrate ways to increase profitability

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