Choosing the right bachelor’s degree is an important part of planning your career. Understanding which degree aligns best with your goals helps you reach your fullest potential, while avoiding investing time and money in a degree you don’t enjoy. This article will explain what makes an agribusiness degree different from traditional business and agricultural science degrees, and how to know which one is the best fit for you.
What Is an Agribusiness Degree?
An agribusiness degree combines business principles with specialized knowledge of the agricultural industry. Rather than studying business in a general context, students learn how management, finance, marketing, and economics apply specifically to food production and agricultural systems.
Unlike a traditional business degree, which is industry-neutral, agribusiness focuses on the unique economic and operational challenges of agriculture. Agribusiness programs usually include agricultural economics, farm and ranch management, agribusiness finance, commodity marketing, and agriculture policy. These courses help students understand how agricultural products move from farms to processing facilities, distribution centers, and ultimately to consumers. They learn how to streamline this system to be more efficient.
What Is a Traditional Business Degree?
A business degree will cover fundamentals that guide how organizations operate and grow. Students study subjects such as general management, accounting, marketing, finance, economics, and business strategy. These courses are designed to build a broad understanding of how companies function, regardless of industry. While you can customize your business degree by taking specific classes or adding a minor, most business degrees are geared towards industry-neutral occupations like marketing managers, financial analysts, consultants, operations managers, and accountants.
A traditional business degree provides strong general management skills, but it doesn’t typically include agriculture-specific knowledge such as farm management, commodity markets, or agricultural policy. Students looking to go into the agricultural field may need additional specialization.
What Is an Agricultural Science Degree?
An agricultural science degree focuses on the biological, chemical, and environmental systems that make agricultural production possible. It emphasizes scientific research, experimentation, and the improvement of farming practices through technical knowledge. The goal of this field is to enhance productivity, sustainability, and efficiency in agriculture.
Students in agricultural science programs study subjects like soil science, crop and animal science, genetics, and more. Many courses include laboratory work, field research, and hands-on experiences designed to help students understand how plants and animals grow and ecosystems function. The main difference between this degree and agribusiness is that it improves agricultural practices through science, not through business.
Comparisons
Traditional business degrees teach management and economic skills that can be applied to most companies, independent of a specific industry. Agricultural science is not focused on business, but on science-driven investigation and problem solving in agriculture. This degree helps advance science so farmers can create more food sustainably with less work, whereas an agribusiness degree helps streamline business operations. Agricultural science offers more opportunities to work in laboratories, but both degrees have the opportunity to complete internships and other hands-on experiences at farms and ranches with different focuses.
Which Degree Is Right for You?
If you are more drawn to working with businesses that do not deal with agricultural products or systems, a business degree would be best for you. If you are drawn to how agriculture works at a biological or chemical level and want to improve the lifestyle of animals or crop production or animal productivity, studying agricultural science would be best for you. Agribusiness combines elements of both disciplines, with technical knowledge of agriculture providing a necessary background for business practices.
Ultimately, the right degree depends on whether a student is more interested in science, business, or a combination of both within the agricultural industry. Each degree gives students the opportunity to excel in the degree that best fits their interests and goals.
Degree | Focus | Typical Courses | Career Paths |
| Agribusiness | Business in agriculture | Agricultural economics, commodity marketing | Farm manager, supply chain manager |
| Business | General business management | Finance, marketing, accounting | Consultant, financial analyst |
| Agricultural Science | Agricultural biology and research | Soil science, genetics, crop science | Agronomist, researcher |
Citations
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
Coursera — What Is a Supply Chain Analyst?
Coursera — What Is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)?
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Compliance Officers
North Carolina Office of State Human Resources — Agricultural Compliance Officer I
AgExplorer — Sales Representative: Equipment and Agricultural Systems
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Loan Officers