Agribusiness (Marketing Stream)

Who persuades a city shopper to pick Alberta beef, or a grower to try a new seed variety? That work belongs to agricultural marketers, and Lakeland’s two-year Agribusiness diploma, taught face to face at the Vermilion campus, lets you specialise in it through the marketing stream.

Every agribusiness student shares a first semester, including Introduction to Agribusiness, and confirms or changes stream when it ends. From semester two to semester four, marketing stream courses centre on managing product, price, placement and promotion to sell to customers and meet their needs, applied to farm products, food and agricultural services. Lakeland links the stream to agri-communications, product marketing and agricultural advocacy, so you learn to explain modern farming to buyers and the public as well as to sell.

Marketing ideas get tested on real audiences: running pop-up shops, promoting Band in the Sand, building the Aggies brand, and taking part in ag-advocacy work, simulations and case competitions. Agritourism events and value-added agriculture projects give you real products to promote, while integration with the Student-Managed Farm, Powered by New Holland, keeps campaigns rooted in actual farm production. In second year you choose either an agribusiness practicum or a business management and case analysis project. Afterwards you can add a second diploma in Animal Science Technology or Crop Technology in one more year, or continue to Lakeland’s Bachelor of Agriculture Technology or a 2+2 degree at the University of Lethbridge, University of Alberta, Olds College or Athabasca University.

Graduates of the marketing stream move into roles such as agricultural marketing coordinator, agri-communications specialist, social media specialist, agricultural advocate and retail sales representative for crop input, feed or equipment companies. The stream suits creative, outgoing students who enjoy talking about food and farming and want a career between the farm gate and the customer.