This is a popular job role with mostly operating in close contact with the farmers in supervising and bringing efficiency into the day to day activities on the fields.
You can expect specific questions around the positioning of the company in the value chain and product/service categories in which they operate. The questions suggested below provide can serve as a good preparatory questions set for a sales roles across the value chain:
- What are the financing challenges faced by small & medium scale farmers? What approaches/solutions are currently popular in resolving smallholder finance issues?
- What criteria should farmers use to get the most appropriate seeds for their cropping?
- What are different ways to irrigate a crop? What criteria should farmers use to choose the irrigation method?
- What is precision agriculture? What is needed to achieve precision agriculture outcomes?
- What is the value of precision agriculture for small and medium scale farmers?
- What sorting and grading innovations are finding adoption for fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, milk and meat?
- What cold chain innovations are finding adoption for fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, milk and meat?
- What type of fertilizers are allowed in organic agriculture?
- What is the current approach of smallholders while making their crop choice decision?
- How can digital technologies support the smallholders w.r.t crop management from sowing to harvesting?
- What criteria are used for choosing the packaging for fresh products?
- What are risks to be considered in cash flow based lending?
- How are the urban agriculture value chains different from that of conventional agriculture?
- How does the urban agriculture contribute to the growing food security concerns?
- How do you carry out a functional analysis of urban agriculture production system?
If you are comfortable in answering and having a good discussion on the above questions we wish you a lot of success. If you would like to have preparation support we recommend you the following digital school courses:)
- Agriculture Business Models (Helpful in understanding the need for business model strategy for better planning of operations)
- Introduction to Agri Finance (Helpful to understand the state and role of financing in farm operations)
- Agriculture Basics (Helpful to understand the factors that can play a critical role to achieve farm productivity)
- Basics of precision agriculture(Helpful to understand the scope of digital tool usage in farm operations)
- Organic & regenerative agriculture (Helpful to understand the framework of sustainable agriculture)
- Digital Innovations in Agriculture Extension (Helpful to understand the relevance of digital technologies in improving farm productivity and profitability)
- Introduction to packaging and transportation (Helpful in understanding the post harvest management of the produce)
- Introduction to urban agriculture value chains (Helpful to understand the design of urban agriculture value chains)
- Understanding Urban agriculture (Helpful in understanding the key drivers for urban agriculture)
- Understanding urban agriculture production technology (Helpful in understanding the different technologies used in urban agriculture)
- Cash Flow Financing in Agribusiness (Helpful in understanding the relevance of a cashflow tool to manage the farm financing and operations)