AGRIBUSINESS AND FOOD INNOVATION MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management Program
The Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management program, offered in person at Colorado State University’s Spur campus in Denver, is for professionals from diverse academic, business, and personal backgrounds. This intensive program develops the creative and business skills you need to drive innovation and introduce novel solutions to local and global challenges. It prepares you to lead the transformation of today’s dynamic agricultural and food sectors.
We offer flexibility to accommodate different career paths. You can pursue the Master’s degree as an intensive full-time experience. A part-time option is available if you wish to pursue graduate studies while continuing to work. Additionally, a graduate certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship is offered in partnership with the MBA program in CSU’s College of Business.
This program thrives by bringing innovators together. As students you are teamed up with companies or research scientists to explore the commercial potential of new ideas and develop business models to bring them to market.
Programs of Study
The 35-credit Masters degree blends academic coursework and practical experience. The Masters can be completed full-time in 18 months, or part-time in 28 months. You can also earn a certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from CSU’s MBA program with 9 credits from this program.
The Practicum Projects
As the unique capstone of the Masters, you gain hands-on, real-world experience through a 12-month integrative, team-based, business-development practicum project. Projects can follow an Entrepreneurship track or a Corporate Partnership track.
Costs and Finanical Aid
The investment in a professional degree is a serious decision. Learn more about the costs of this program and about financial aid and scholarships.
Ready to Get Started?
The process to apply is simple, and our team is ready to assist you. We are glad to talk in person to answer any questions. And we can walk you through the process step by step.
Opportunities and Outcomes in Agriculture
This program’s practical, hands-on nature offers opportunities for students to achieve career goals in a variety of ways.
Opportunities in Ag and Food
Industry Outlook and Innovation Trends
- Investment in innovation in agriculture and food has grown and changed dramatically over the last decade.
- Innovation in ag and food builds on a foundation of government-funded research and extension at state universities like CSU and at state and federal agencies like the Colorado Department of Agriculture and the USDA.
- Corporate R&D in ag and food has grown steadily for decades. Projecting from last available data, it is estimated to be more than $50 billion globally today.
- The game changer came from venture capital investment in ag and food. Funding surged from almost nothing in the 2000s to over $20 billion annually in recent years, according to AgFunder. Thousands of ag and food startups have been launched and funded.
Colorado is one of the Leading Ag & Food Innovation Clusters Globally
- Colorado is a global leader in ag and food innovation. When agtech and foodtech emerged as a venture investment sector in the early 2010s, Colorado was already at the forefront. At that time our faculty highlighted this in an influential report on “The Emergence of an Innovation Cluster in the Agricultural Value Chain along Colorado’s Front Range.”
- Colorado’s innovation cluster in ag and food is concentrated geographically in metro Denver and the northern Front Range. The CSU Spur campus is strategically located at the heart of this innovation cluster.
- Colorado’s innovation cluster is anchored by major institutions, such as CSU, the University of Colorado campuses in Boulder and Denver, and federal research labs of the USDA in Fort Collins and the DOE (NREL) in Golden, as well as by corporations like Molson Coors, Danón, JBS, Ardent Mills, Leprino, and Nutrien.
- According to a recent global analysis, “The Global Startup Ecosystem Report Agtech & New Food Edition,” Denver ranks #5 in the world after Silicon Valley, New York, London, and Tel Aviv-Jerusalem.
Areas Where Colorado Leads in Ag and Food Innovation
- Water management and irrigation technologies
- Animal health and nutrition
- Agricultural information and data systems
- Controlled environment agriculture, including vertical agriculture
- Commodity processing and marketing
- Food manufacturing and consumer packaged goods (CPGs)
- Beer, wine, & spirits
- Natural, organic, and local foods
- “Fast & Fresh” food service franchises
Career Outcomes
The practical, hands-on nature of this program offers opportunities for you to meet your career goals in a variety of ways. You can launch from this program into the professional world with new relationships, skills, and knowledge that make you a highly competitive innovator or entrepreneur in today’s rapidly evolving agriculture and food industries.
From the Practicum’s Entrepreneurship Track
- You may be successful in launching a startup out of your practicum project and could take a financial stake and even a leadership role in the newly formed company.
- Alternatively, the experience provides the knowledge, confidence, and network needed to launch your own business venture.
From the Practicum’s Corporate Partner Track
- You and your corporate partners may find an excellent fit for further employment after their practicum project is complete.
- Or, you can point to your knowledge and experience when seeking employment at another company.
Career Opportunities for Graduates
Given industry trends and a prime location at the heart of Colorado’s ag and food innovation cluster, coming out of the Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management program you can enjoy multiple possible career options:
- Agtech or Foodtech startup Founder
- Agribusiness or Food Industry Consultant
- Marketing Research Analyst
- Systems Analyst
- Agribusiness or Food Product Development Lead
- Director of Research and Development
- Chief Marketing Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
- Chief Executive Officer
- Crop or Livestock Farm Manager
- General or Operations Manager
- Direct-to-Market Business Owner/Manager
- Restaurateur
- Venture Capital Investor
- Cooperative Extension Specialist
- Grants Program Coordinator
- Economic Development Officer/Director
What Sets Us Apart?
Many graduate programs in the US offer you training to join the next generation of leaders, including most business schools at prominent universities. This program stands out from the rest in the following ways:
Creating Innovators and Entrepreneurs, Not Just Managers
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At the graduate level, business management programs are usually oriented toward larger corporations and, despite lots of talk about innovation, the “MBA culture” tends to reflect that corporate orientation. By contrast, startup ventures and even new initiatives within large organizations start as small projects that face a very different set of challenges. You will be trained as innovators and entrepreneurs, marked by a different culture, a different mindset, a different skill set.
Specialized to the Ag and Food Value Chain
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The ag and food industry is teeming with opportunities like never before. Spotting and exploiting these opportunities, however, requires specialized knowledge of the industry. You will have opportunities to learn from and work with many of the hot areas for startups in the ag/food tech sector including:
- Farm management software, big data, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics
- Sensors, networked devices, Internet of Things
- Farm robotics and autonomous vehicles
- Agbiotech, genetics, and microbiome
- Bioenergy and biomaterials
- Soil carbon, measuring and monetizing offsets
- Novel farming systems, controlled environment agriculture, vertical farms
- Agricultural marketplaces and supply-chain digitization
- Innovative food ingredients, alternative proteins, precision fermentation
- New food and beverage product development and brand innovations
- eGrocery and food delivery
- Retail and food service innovations
- In-home and meal prep innovations
- Post-consumer recycling and waste reduction
Learning by Creating Value
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Action-based education provides learning opportunities that are not feasible in the classroom. This has long been recognized, whether with clinical training in medicine, laboratory and field work in the natural sciences, and long hours spent in the studio when training in the arts. First in select coursework projects, and then in the Masters practicum project, you will learn to navigate highly unstructured entrepreneurial business environments. By working together as a team within a clinical setting, you will learn to tackle real problems and exploit real opportunities, with the potential to create real economic value.
Innovating in Partnership with External Idea Providers
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Many entrepreneurship programs do emphasize action-based learning. Yet, they often do so by encouraging students to come up with their own business ideas. Generally, students themselves do not have enough experience or a wide enough network to identify the most significant opportunities. By contrast, our approach matches student teams with existing companies or university researchers who have proposed a business idea that the student team elects to pursue in partnership with that external idea provider. This partnership makes success more likely. You will be surrounded by a professional support network that provides advice and course corrections at critical stages throughout yourventure creation process.
Embedded within a Regional Ag and Food Innovative Ecosystem
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Entrepreneurial activities tends to be concentrated regionally (think “Silicon Valley”). The Colorado Front Range has emerged as one of the most active regions in the US and the world for innovation in the agricultural, food, and beverage industries. You will be able to build a professional network within this robust innovation ecosystem.
Alumni Who Pay It Forward
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As you graduate from the program and go on to build your own companies and careers, you are invited to stay actively connected with the program, returning as guest speaker, as advisor, and as external idea provider on future practicum projects, thus creating a robust alumni network that provides ongoing connections and opportunities throughout your career.
Testimonials
The program equipped me with the tools to approach business with a 360-degree perspective, combining creativity with practical, hands-on knowledge. It gave me a clear direction for my career and sparked a passion in me for creating positive change in the food system by developing high-value food products
Now more than ever, as agriculture diversifies to give consumers many food choices and technology changes the way farmers and other agribusinesses work, innovation and entrepreneurship are key to continuing to develop our future. Agriculture needs people and ideas, and we continue to count on CSU to help us.
The combination of an agriculture and food-systems focus with graduate-level business training is something the industry has needed for a long time.
In the News
A taste for food innovation: New master’s program at CSU Spur
“Coloradans hear so much about Rocky Ford melons and Palisade peaches they mistakenly believe those fruits are among the top five products grown or raised in the state. Try cattle, dairy, corn, hay, and wheat, in that order.
These delicious details are staples of a new master’s degree program Colorado State University launched after several years of discussion about the Centennial State’s growing role in food innovation.”
Innovators come from all walks in Agribusiness & Food Innovation Management master’s program
“In its first semester, Colorado State University’s new Master of Agribusiness & Food Innovation Management program is drawing in professionals from a variety of backgrounds but with a common interest in solving food system challenges in new and collaborative ways.
Students embark on a combination of coursework, networking opportunities and on-the-job experience working with innovators in agriculture and the food and beverage industries. The program includes a practicum where students help develop and launch new products and businesses, along with advancing technologies.
But while the program’s focus is on agriculture and food, the students it attracts are from a diverse array of fields.”
Meet Our Team
The Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management team combines world class scholars with world class business leaders. Course instructors and practicum advisors bring real-world experience into the conversation. And we are surrounded by an amazing range of innovation initiatives and scientists from across Colorado State University’s Spur campus in Denver and main campus in Fort Collins.
Laston Charriez
Assistant Professor of Practice
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Gregory Graff
Professor
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Rachel Sears
Program Coordinator
CSU’s Spur Campus Provides the Perfect Classroom at the Heart of a World Class Innovation Ecosystem
The CSU Spur Denver Campus is a modern day approach to CSU’s land grant mission for research, education, and outreach.
- A brand-new campus that brings learning to everyone, offers collaborative spaces for research around the most pressing issues of our time, and serves local and global communities.
- A hub for cutting edge coursework, active networking, and practical experience
- The perfect home for the first-of-its-kind Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management program, preparing leaders to solve local and global challenges