For many years, Professor Jarvis Cain taught “Agricultural Business Management” as a semester-length class (AREC414) at University of Maryland College Park (UMCP). ABM now is a larger programme at the university. This class continues under a different focus and set of objectives compared with thirty-plus years ago.
Cain’s class notes went through many iterations. They created the framework for a textbook he wanted to write but never completed.
Jarvis Cain was my father. He died in 2024.
Working through some materials he kept, I came across these class notes. They date from the Fall Semester 1991. These notes and the amendments nicely show Cain’s intellectual orientation in the field of agricultural and resource economics. They also show his career-long emphasis on realistic, hands-on analysis of case studies over abstract theory.
Cain’s class notes were organised into a package that students were invited to purchase at a local printing shop. In practice, a tutor deposited a master copy of materials at the shop, and students would purchase a bundled copy to use as a skeleton for lecture notes and classroom activities. These sometimes were referred to “course packs” or “reading packs”.
The marginal notes are by Cain. They represent changes he was planning to make for a future iteration of the class.
Agricultural Business Management (AREC414) from 1991
This is a large file (8Mb) and may take a few minutes to download.
Nb: To respect copyright, I have removed the article:
- Robert E. Linneman and John D. Kennell. 1977. Shirt-sleeve approach to long-range plans. Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp. 141-150.