The goal of this department is a professional education of agribusiness managers with professionalism, humanity, and creation. Through the farms and farmers’ organizations, leisure agriculture, marketing and international trade of agricultural products as the core competencies, the international cooperation and industry-education cooperation are adopted as the strategies to pursue the development goals of professionalism, humanity, and creation on the four-year B.S. program, M.S. program, and joint dual-degree M.S. program.
Nine full-time faculty members in the department, Nine within all with doctorate degrees, comprise of five professors, one associate professor and three assistant professors. These faculty members’ specialties are on economics, agricultural economy, agricultural extension, business administration, and agriculture.
The faculty members and students of the department have conducted a number of studies on production and marketing analysis of agricultural products, management of farmers’ organizations, rural development, leisure agriculture, international trade, international cooperation, and financial management. The research is emphasized on the core subjects of the department, farms and farmers’ organizations, leisure agriculture, and marketing and international trade of agricultural products.
In terms of extension services, a number of agribusiness management workshops and conferences are held each year in addition to providing consulting service to the agribusiness proprietors. Committee of Industry-education Cooperation and Internship Program, International Cooperation Committee, and Committee of Agribusiness Academic Cooperation of Taiwan and China were organized in the department to integrate the resources of private and public sectors to provide comprehensive services.
A huge collection of agribusiness-related books, including more than seven thousand volumes in Chinese titles, more than three volumes in English titles, some 200 Chinese journals, and almost one hundred foreign language journals, are housed in the university’s main library.
The labs of farms and farmers’ organizations, leisure agriculture, and marketing and international trade of agricultural products are furnished for the core disciplines of the department. Besides 26 computers in the lab of farms and farmers’ organizations for instruction and graduate students, three labs, four general classrooms, and one reading room of the department are equipped with multimedia hardware and software. The software include SPSS, Amos, LISREL, STATISTICA, Eviews, SHAZAM, Frontier Analyst, LIMDEP, S-PLUS, STELLA, TreeAge Pro, QRCODE system, Expert Choice, TQC serial systems, FLASH, Photo Shop, and et al.
The graduates of the department will be mainly employed in farms, farmers’ organizations, leisure agriculture, enterprise of marketing and international trade of agricultural products, agricultural administration. According the survey of the students graduated during 2009-2012, more than half of them were working in agribusiness, marketing service, and government institutions. In general, the competence of graduates with program fulfillment easily meets the needs of jobs.