Agribusiness: Digging into the Trends that Matter
For more than half a century, Harvard Business School's annual Agribusiness Seminar has provided a singular executive learning experience with content that is continually renewed. Below, faculty David E. Bell, Forest L. Reinhardt and José B. Alvarez, share their perspectives on the program's impact on the global food system.
What is the key goal of the Agribusiness Seminar?
Bell: We want to provide an effective way for individuals and organizations to keep up with emerging trends in the agribusiness industry. The seminar broadens participants' understanding of how agribusiness works in different parts of the globe and in different sectors. In short, we help participants expand their strategic contribution through exposure to what's happening elsewhere in the industry.
Alvarez: This program is valuable because leaders from across different sectors generally focus on their own business. The seminar offers participants a unique opportunity to explore ideas from other parts of the value chain that might revolutionize their business.
Bell: The opportunity to explore ideas from other parts of the value chain has been a key goal from the very beginning. When Ray Goldberg started the Agribusiness Seminar back in 1961, he observed a lot of fighting between different segments of the food industry; farmers hated retailers, retailers hated distributors, and so on. Ray realized that the industry could benefit if people understood the challenges facing companies in other agribusiness sectors. That's why this seminar brings people together to discuss common problems.
Alvarez: We want to help the industry function well. The agribusiness industry plays an important role in feeding the world. Collectively, it's the world's biggest, most important social enterprise. Seminar participants are not just moving a can of peas or applying a set of fertilizers. They are playing an essential role in feeding the planet's population in a sustainable way. If this industry does not work, everyone's in trouble.
What kind of executives typically attend the seminar?
Reinhardt: The seminar has always included a broad mix of people from different parts of the industry—not only farmers and ranchers, but also input suppliers, consultants, retailers, distributors, tech companies, and governments. What has changed over time is that participants have become even more globally diverse. In the early days, participants came mainly from North America, Europe, and South America; countries comprising two-thirds of the world's population were not even represented. Today, we also have participants from China, India, and sub-Saharan Africa.
How does the seminar broaden participants' perspectives?
Alvarez: Through the diversity of the group and the very global curriculum, participants come to realize that systems can work very, very differently depending on where a business is located and the associated resources, talent, and culture. Getting a close-up look at how problems are solved in different parts of the world can be very instructive. The cases we examine span the value chain and the globe, but the cases from more challenged environments are particularly thought-provoking because they illuminate creative solutions to constraints.
Reinhardt: In the seminar, we encourage participants to think more strategically about potential disruption. The systems through which we get our food tend to be sticky; they're very durable. But that doesn't mean disruption can’t happen. It's important to consider how an innovation will or won't translate into new markets or environments.
How do you develop the curriculum for the seminar?
Bell: Our team researches and writes 11 or 12 new agribusiness cases each year. We're always on top of what's happening in the industry—and our research is translated very quickly from the field into the classroom.
Alvarez: We spend time meeting with people on the front lines of change. Every year, we come across ideas or practices that are quite interesting and sometimes even shocking. We focus on topics that we feel are extremely important for the industry today and those that we predict will become more important in the future.
Reinhardt: One highlight of the seminar is our series of guest speakers. We bring in a senior person—usually the chief executive—from each of the companies in the cases. It's an extraordinary opportunity to gain insight into what's happening in different parts of the agribusiness industry right now.
What are some of the issues explored during the seminar?
Reinhardt: Every year the seminar addresses different topics, but collectively, the cases help participants understand how the industry is changing. For example, agribusiness has become more technologically, financially, and institutionally sophisticated—and much more global. Today, what happens in China and India affects people in Minnesota and Brazil.
Bell: We also look at different angles related to consumer evolution. Consumers' expectations about food quality, food safety, and other less tangible food attributes—like animal welfare—are continually increasing, particularly in developed countries. At the same time, cost pressure is unrelenting. To deal with those pressures, individuals and companies have to be smarter than their competitors and more technologically adept. Companies need to invent machinery and processes that enable them to deliver safer, more nutritious, better looking, better tasting, more convenient, and more politically acceptable products at a lower cost.
Reinhardt: Resources are another important topic. You can't talk about agriculture without talking about water. In many countries, the institutions for managing water were designed for a very different world than the one we inhabit today. What steps do we need to take if the economy has outgrown the institutions? Climate, of course, also comes into many of the discussions. Growers are experiencing temperature extremes and increased variability in precipitation patterns. The best way to approach those challenges is with human capital and technology.
Bell: Each seminar is an illuminating collection of topics that can have a powerful impact on participants' strategies. Whether it's Millennials' impact on the food system, the growing role of private equity in business, the business model for ethanol-based fuel, vertical farming, or product branding, we're prompting leaders to think broadly and creatively about challenges and opportunities.
Do participants really come back year after year?
Bell: Yes, many do. Because the program has a new curriculum each year, participants can attend every year with very little repetition. We always have a few dozen participants who have attended before. Alternatively, some companies find it valuable to use the seminar as a training vehicle, so they send different people each year.
How does the diversity of the group contribute to the learning experience?
Reinhardt: Ordinarily, people tend to find others who agree with them. They reinforce each other's views and reach the conclusion that every right-minded person thinks pretty much the way they do. But after 20 minutes in the Agribusiness Seminar, that assumption is blown up because a lot of smart, knowledgeable people have very different opinions on the cases.
Alvarez: We bring many different perspectives to bear in solving the world's food problems. Some executives will say, for example, that the solution is to apply more technology and invent more GMO foods, while others focus on the issues around trust in the food system. Still others from countries like India or Nigeria may say, "We just have to feed our populations." That kind of exchange of ideas around a challenge is important because it pushes participants to think about problems in new ways.
What are some of the other benefits of attending the seminar?
Bell: The case method of learning helps participants make better decisions. Executives new to the case method may start out thinking that everything is supposed to have a right answer. But when you go through the cases and listen to CEOs talk about their dilemmas and decisions, you begin to understand that a lot of decisions are made with incomplete information. In many situations, you just have to do something, whether or not you know it is right. It's comforting to realize that—it gives you courage to act.
The seminar is also a great networking opportunity. With just under 200 people from the same industry learning side by side, connections are formed, old acquaintances are renewed, and even a casual conversation can lead to an important deal.
Reinhardt: I'm always struck by how the seminar builds community. It fosters the group's sense of itself as a global community with shared interests, even if the participants have very different perspectives on how those interests might move forward.
What do you enjoy most about teaching in the seminar?
Reinhardt: Agribusiness is full of very smart, pleasant people. I've learned so much from teaching in this program. I have tried, while facilitating discussions, to help to make the program's output greater than the sum of its parts. I hope participants leave the program with a deeper sense of the complexity of the problems that we confront collectively, but also with a sense of optimism about our ability to manage those problems.
Alvarez: The participants are very humble. Through the program and through the connections they make, they develop a broader understanding of what's happening in agribusiness—which broadens their sense of purpose. It's an amazing honor to be around these people, to learn from them, and to be in the middle of something that's incredibly important and has enormous potential for positive impact on the world.