AGRI13009 - Sustainable Agricultural Development: Local and Global

General Information

Unit Synopsis

The global food system faces a range of economic, social, political, and environmental challenges. In this unit you will explore emerging challenges in agricultural systems in Australia and around the world, and assess opportunities for development of sustainable management solutions. Case studies will be drawn from a range of contexts across the globe, with a particular emphasis on resource-limited settings, including low- and middle-income countries. You will explore the effects of resource availability and management actions on primary production and discuss the social, economic, political, and ecological dimensions associated with them. You will undertake an investigation into a current challenge confronting a food or fibre production system and offer practical strategies for sustainable agricultural systems.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 1
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Minimum of 72 credit points

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2025

Term 1 - 2025 Profile
Bundaberg
Emerald
Online
Rockhampton

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Online Test 30%
2. Case Study 20%
3. Report 50%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 15.79% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student feedback
Feedback
Some students expressed that content from some guest lecturers was material repeated from other units that the students had previously undertaken. This, the students reported, resulted in a lack of engagement on their part. Though, some students would not have taken these other students.
Recommendation
While this unit's forthcoming update unit proposal will mitigate some of these issues, guest lecturers should be requested to modify their content, where possible, to suit the specific aims and learning outcomes of this unit.
Action Taken
Content was updated by the unit coordinator and guest lecturer presentations restricted to specific topic areas where risk of overlap was low.
Source: Unit coordinator reflections
Feedback
This unit's theme is rather broad. While this lends itself to a varied exploration of sustainable and resource-smart food production, AGRI13009 would benefit from a refined and updated focus.
Recommendation
Many of AGRI13009's themes explore sustainable development and global challenges to food production. To give the unit some more coherence and focus, this unit should be updated to explicitly align content with the sustainable development goals and international agricultural development. This will provide greater coherence across the unit and align with CQUni's strategic plan and research strengths.
Action Taken
The unit content was reorganised to provide a clearer focus on sustainability linked to UN SDGs and international agricultural development.
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
The use of local case studies in assessment was well received.
Recommendation
Retain the case study focus in assessment 3 and refine to assess application of understanding developed in the unit to specific sustainability case studies.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Unit coordinator reflections
Feedback
The unit covers a broad range of topics with limited time spent examining ways that graduates may use the knowledge from the unit to contribute to more sustainable practices.
Recommendation
Some of the content in the unit could be presented as prerecorded material, with more class time spent working through case studies of application of sustainability concepts and principles in the tasks that graduates will perform in roles within industry.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Evaluate how challenges facing the global food system are impacting agricultural management actions
  2. Integrate scientific knowledge for the development of sustainable management solutions for the cropping or livestock industry
  3. Develop solutions to the complex challenges facing agricultural systems.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3
1 - Online Test •
2 - Case Study • •
3 - Report • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3
1 - Communication • • •
2 - Problem Solving • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • •
5 - Team Work • •
6 - Information Technology Competence •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence •
9 - Social Innovation •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10