Business Commons^™

Saturday Night Live Club Lamb Sale, Tyler P. Wilkerson

Agricultural Education and Communication

“Competition is said to be the backbone of the stock show industry,” (Davis, 1998). A statement spoken in a 1998 thesis paper on the junior livestock industry still holds water in today’s world. Youth livestock exhibition, especially in California, continues to grow in the number of youth participants and the number of livestock entries at shows (Switzer, 2019).

It is the responsibility of livestock breeders to breed, raise, and sell their livestock to maximize the opportunity for youth to acquire livestock to show. In his research, Wendt discusses the capabilities of purchasing livestock through online platforms. He speaks to the …

Product Photography For Agricultural Products, Madison Ann Somerday

Agricultural Education and Communication

The E-commerce space is growing and E-commerce is dependent upon product photography. The product photograph is one of the most important elements of an online visual marketing strategy. When selling online, the only sense a customer can use to judge the product is sight. The picture is what your customers will utilize to decide whether they want to purchase the product or not. In the 2017 Bazaarvoice’s Shopper Experience Index, product photos are shown to be able to create a 111% conversion boost and a 180% revenue boost per visitor for top retailers and brands. The picture of a product …

Increasing Groundwater Recharge Activity In The San Joaquin Valley Of California, Jacob Willhite, Jacob Willhite

Agricultural Education and Communication

Over the past several decades, groundwater has become a primary source of water used for agriculture in California. Surface water available for agricultural use has depleted due to declining rain totals and reallocation to environmental purposes. As a result, groundwater overdraft has become a severe challenge, especially in the San Joaquin Valley of California. This excessive overdraft causes a plethora of issues, one of the most serious being land subsidence (Faunt, Sneed, Traum, & Brandt, 2016). Studies suggest some areas of the San Joaquin Valley have experienced more than a 28-foot drop in the land level since the 1970’s (Alley …

Central Coast Creamery Marketing Pamphlet, Camille E. Silvera

Agricultural Education and Communication

The author researched how to create an efficient pamphlet to effectively market and promote Central Coast Creamery's new catering services.

The Future Of Work: How Employers Are Adjusting To Millennial Expectations, Felipe Vallejo

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this research was to examine how agricultural based companies are staying ahead while new technology advancements and millennial expectations are influencing future labor markets.

Bonipak Trucker Lounge Improvements, Lauren M. Reade

Agricultural Education and Communication

Bonita Packing Company, also known as Bonipak, has been a produce grower and shipper in the Santa Maria Valley for nearly 90 years and has contracts with customers all over the United States and Canada. Since 1932, the family owned and operated business has maintained steady growth as the population continues to rise all while making it a goal to uphold their family values and maintain their deep roots within the community. Transitioning into a fourth generation family farm, the Bonipak team hopes to continue to promote growth and maintain a positive reputation within the community and beyond. With multiple …

Creation And Implementation Of Marketing Collateral For The Agricultural Education And Communication Department At California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Bekah Marjorie Reed

Agricultural Education and Communication

In January, 2019 the author created a template in Adobe InDesign to input information to be gathered from professors. The intent of the template was to display relevant information to help students learn more about their future faculty: hometown, areas of research, industry/teaching experience, alma maters, among other information (email address, office location, and office phone number). The author then developed questions and emailed all of the faculty and staff in the Agricultural Education and Communication Department along with a request for a headshot from each member. For those who did not have a headshot available to them, or who …

The Wine Stone Inn, Kendall N. Doud

Agricultural Education and Communication

The Wine Stone Inn is a new 12-room boutique hotel currently being built in Old Town Orcutt, California. The hotel is seeking a grand opening that will attract vintner business, agribusiness, and agricultural vendors for the hotel, and help promote local wineries and breweries in the Santa Maria Valley. Orcutt is a growing township, which is becoming very attractive to visitors because of the walking distance to restaurants, local pubs, wine venues, and other businesses that project growth in the future. Agribusiness makes up a small percentage of the corporate market and agritourism is a growing segment in this area. …

Creating An Efficient Business Plan For Longview Club Lambs, Karlee J. Dornbush

Agricultural Education and Communication

Longview Club Lambs is a small startup business located in Lincoln, California. Longview Club Lambs has the goal to maintain a high of level efficiency and productivity to compete with other club lamb businesses within the next three years (Longview Club Lambs, 2018). In order to do this, Longview Club Lambs will need to evaluate its current practices and determine the necessary adjustments that should be made to their business plan.

To create this new business model, the business will need to re-evaluate all its management practices and make the needed changes to adjust to a larger scale operation. Implementing …

Hosting The Third Annual Young Women In Agriculture Career And Leadership Seminar, Emma E. Morris, Madyline J. Braught

Agricultural Education and Communication

Agriculture has traditionally been a male-dominated industry; however, recent years have shown a significant growth in female presence. Women are beginning to take leadership roles both on the farm and within advocacy, lobbying, and business entities in the industry. According to the latest agricultural census data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2012, women farmers controlled seven percent of the nation’s farmland (Census, 2014). Additionally, women held leadership roles in 14 percent of the nation’s two million farms (Census, 2014). This data is several years old, and likely the numbers have grown since the last census was …

Natural Disaster Animal Evacuation, Nicole Amanda Booten

Agricultural Education and Communication

In the past 20 years there have been massive natural disasters that have devastated communities and states across America. In Southern California and on the Central Coast, there have been widespread fires with the largest fires being: in 2003, the Cedar Fire affected San Diego, in 2007, the Zaca Fire impacted Santa Barbara, and the Witch Fire devasted San Diego, and in 2017, the Thomas Fire affected Ventura County (Cal Fire, 2018).

Although Cal Fire has information on helping lower the impact of a fire on your animals and property, there is currently no protocol or general plan of action …

Farmers For America Documentary Screening, Tiffany Jane Thompson

Agricultural Education and Communication

The agriculture industry is seeing a decrease in the number of beginning farms, operations that have been in existence for 10 years or less, across the United States. According to the most current Census of Agriculture by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), beginning farms make up approximately a quarter of the 2.1 million total farms across the country. This is a 20 percent drop between the 2007 and the 2012 censuses (2012 Census Highlights, Beginning Farmers, 2017). At the same time, the average age of the U.S. farmer is increasing and is now at 58 (Williamson, J. & …

Wisehart Cutting Horses Business And Customer Portfolio, Tawni Brook Stoneburner

Agricultural Education and Communication

The cutting horse industry has been around for many years with the first competition being held in 1898, as a way for people to prove their own horses’ ranch talents and has now grown to an industry based on trainers and clients (NCHA, 2018). The main goal of the trainer is to get a horse prepared to show at its best ability and to win the most earnings (Wisehart, E., 2017). According to the American Quarter Horse Handbook, “Judges score the horses on their ability to keep the cow from returning to the herd, cow sense, attentiveness and courage.” (AQHA …

The Santa Barbara County Fair Entries Office Manual, Heidi Alyssa Morisoli

Agricultural Education and Communication

Employee training is vital to any company and essential for an organization’s success (UMA S. N, 2013). Job training is defined as the process of enhancing the skills, capabilities and knowledge of employees doing a particular job (Schappel, 2016). Regarding job training, 76% of employees have reported this type of training is most important when obtaining a new job (Schappel, 2016). Not only is training desired amongst employees but it also improves morale of employees, decreases the need for employee supervision, increases chances of promotions, and increases employee productivity (UMA S. N, 2013). One training opportunity that companies utilize is …

G3 Facebook Campaign, Virginia Rose Lee

Agricultural Education and Communication

G3 Enterprises, started by the third generation of the Gallo family, provides packing and supply chain services within the wine industry. The transportation department focuses and specializes in transporting wine grapes from vineyards to the wineries for Gallo and external companies. In some ways, marketing a service as business-to-business can be more complex than marketing a business-to-consumer product according to B2B International (Hague, Harrison, 2017). Therefore, G3 needs to branch out of its traditional marketing and keep up with current trends by creating a greater social media presence. If G3 Transportation can successfully showcase its trucking service through social media, …

New Product Launch – Syngenta, Kendra C. Legge

Agricultural Education and Communication

Launching any type of new product poses a risk of failure. To ensure success, it is important to know the audience to which a company is launching a product. In Joshua Grossnickle’s book The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net he writes, “It's the first rule of business: Know your customer.” It is significant to not only know what makes up an effective product launch, but what the target customers believe make an effective product launch. The chemical company Syngenta is about to launch a new insecticide “Minecto Pro.” Direct feedback from customers about this …

Malene Wines: The Beginning Of A Brand, Tyler Menane

Agricultural Education and Communication

Malene Wines is the most recently developing brand under the Crimson Wine Group. Currently, the brand is being produced and managed under Chamisal Vineyards. Malene Wines started off with one brand of rosé wine, that has only been available for purchase in the Chamisal tasting room or wholesale. This has caused confusion for the consumer in differentiating the two brands. To help begin the separation of the two brands, Malene Wines has recently received a modified Airstream trailer to serve as a mobile tasting room.

Whereas Chamisal Vineyards is a brand focused on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with small production …

Feasibility Study For Renovating An Old Barn Into A Tasting Room For K-Dot Winery, Kendall Ott

Agricultural Education and Communication

California is the largest wine producer in the nation. There are more than 4,000 wineries in the state and much of their success comes from tasting rooms. A study will be conducted in the spring of 2017 to determine the feasibility of building a tasting room out of an old barn at an established winery. Tasting rooms can add monetary and aesthetic value to a winery. Knowing how to conduct a feasibility study for the build is crucial to its success. The author will create a feasibility study including a cash flow budget, a capital budgeting statement, and a sensitivity …

Business Model: California Agriculture Marketing Agency, Mary M. Alameda, Emma L. Larson

Agricultural Education and Communication

The importance of creating a marketing agency specializing in agriculture is to bridge the gap between producers and consumers. The lack of transparency from the producer has created a torn industry causing the average consumer to be questioning his or her food, or simply not understanding the agricultural way of life. An agricultural marketing firm in California can represent and advocate for local businesses to start closing the producer to consumer gap.

The American farmer excels at many things, but lacks in public communications. Modern day farmers have been able to produce more food than ever despite fewer resources and …

Developing A Website For Hamilton Brothers Ranch, Anne Patricia Hamilton

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project is to develop a website for Hamilton Brother’s Ranch purpose is to evolve Hamilton Brother’s Ranch to modern times and make it easier for the customer to see where their product is coming from. The Hamilton Family has a long history in agriculture and what they think is normal is actually very unique and consumers love reading and feeling as if they are a part of where their food comes from. The overall goal of the project is to promote Hamilton Brother’s operation as a whole through a website that will be able to connect …

Buchanan Hollow Nut Company Rebranding And Research, Lindsay Robson

Agricultural Education and Communication

A marketing plan was designed for Buchanan Hollow Nut Company (BHNC) in the summer of 2016 to redesign the company brand. Additionally, the author conducted research to determine if the implementation of bar codes and scanning would improve internal efficiency.

Utilizing the company’s owner, and famous artist, Sharleen Robson, the author created a tasteful watercolor design to update the logo for BHNC. Furthermore, by contacting the current packaging company, Legend Packaging Group, the author received estimated costs for adding a bar code to each product. These barcodes were then printed and added to the processing boxes in the storage facility …

Battle River Wilderness Retreat Brochure, Sarah W. Conway

Agricultural Education and Communication

Fly-fishing, bear photography and complete wilderness solitude—welcome to Battle River Wilderness Retreat. This small, unknown lodge in Katmai National Park is one of Alaska’s famous fishing destinations. The current brochure, which markets the lodge to the outside customers, is from the 1990s. The author is conducting a study to modify the brochure by updating the advertising pamphlet with new multimedia, personal stories, wildlife information, and the history of the lodge. The author plans to travel to the lodge in Alaska and will photograph new images for the revision, interview guests, and study the environment and surrounding wildlife. The revised brochure …

Measuring The Success Of The Emo Western States Championship Horse Show, Alison Mae Einolander

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project was to determine whether or not the 2016 EMO Western States Championship Show was successful, and analyze if it should become an annual event. In this project, survey data and analysis pertaining to the 2016 Inaugural EMO Western States Championship Show will be found.

An Advertising Plan For Clarityadm, Chelsey Porter

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project is to develop an advertising plan for a small business based on the central coast. In this project you will find information pertaining to the aquarium keeping hobby as well as creating business website and business cards. This was designed to create a website and business cards in order to broaden the customer base for the business and increase profits.

Inland Vet Supply Employee Training Manual, Jessica Crawford

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this senior project was to create an informative manual that would aid new employees in learning proper store protocols at Inland Vet Supply. The project included the creation of the manual based on the wants of the employer, Tammy Horal, as well as the needs of the store itself. The manual was written in a way that could be easily understood, and quickly referred to. The intended goal for the manual was to improve the ease of learning, and to reduce the amount of confusion when teaching new employees store procedures. It is with hope that once …