Master of Food and Resource Economics, MFRE

The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada

The University of British Columbia (UBC)

Study options for this course

The award	How you will study	Study duration	Course start	Domestic course fees	International course fees
MFRE	Full-time	1 year	September	CAD 21400 per year	CAD 41400 per year

About Master of Food and Resource Economics, MFRE - at The University of British Columbia (UBC)

Program Overview

MFRE is a unique one-year professional masters program combining economics, policy and business as understood from an agriculture, food, natural resources and environmental perspective. This degree blends the economic and analytical rigour of an MSc with the business and management elements of an MBA, and equips you to analyze real-world issues through applied economics and quantitative skills. You’ll develop and refine the necessary critical thinking and analytical abilities to make informed, evidence-based decisions, and to apply them to the very real issues our world is grappling with.

Please visit http://mfre.landfood.ubc.ca/ for more information.

Learning Objectives

The MFRE program is part of the FRE group in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC. In order to complete the MFRE degree, student must obtain at least 18 credits from FRE courses.

Please visit: http://mfre.landfood.ubc.ca/program/courses/mfre-courses/ to learn more about the courses offered by MFRE

MFRE candidates enter the program with their unique portfolio of skills, which the program then further enhances and develops in the following areas:

Applied Economics

Assessing agricultural commodity prices, including the economic determinants of commodity pricing relationships over space, time and form.

Exploring global markets for food and resources, with emphasis on trade and competitiveness.

Conducting sound empirical research related to trade, consumer demand and food markets, through data and regression analysis in Stata and advanced spreadsheets.

Developing an ability to critically review articles and studies concerning food and resource markets.

Agribusiness Management

Analyzing financials to support interpretation and strategic planning for an agribusiness firm.

Identifying growth opportunities and developing business plans based on in-depth market research.

Assessing business practices and making recommendations for improvements.

Hedging commodity price risks for varying production profiles (e.g. annual and perennial crops).

Engaging in mock trading through simulated commodity trading games; having access to the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Futures trading competition, as well as the Bloomberg and Capital IQ platforms.

Policy Analysis

Performing cost-benefit analysis through rigorous modelling.

Evaluating and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and carbon offsets.

Analyzing a matrix of policy options with likely economic, environmental and efficiency vs. equity outcomes, and examining institutional constraints to implementation.

Evaluating project effectiveness utilizing United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) principles of monitoring and evaluation.

Entry requirements

Prospective students must meet both the UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies minimum standards for admission and MFRE program specific entry requirements. Most international students must meet english requirement standards.

The MFRE program requires a bachelor’s degree in an area such as economics, agricultural economics or business that provides a solid background in economics. You can apply for MFRE before you have completed your bachelor’s degree. For example, at UBC many students apply in Term 1 of their final year of undergraduate, when they still have Term 2 (January to April) courses to take in order to complete their undergraduate degrees. The specific background required for the MFRE degree involves the following four competencies:

Mathematical competency, at least differential calculus (equivalent to MATH 104 at UBC).
Statistical competency, at least one course in statistics (equivalent to LFS 252 or ECON 325 at UBC).
Introductory economic theory courses, in both micro and macro-economic principles (equivalent to ECON 101 and 102 at UBC).
You have built on these introductory economic theory courses by:
Taking at least one more course in micro-economic theory at the intermediate level (equivalent to ECON301 or COMM295 at UBC).
Taking at least two additional economics-based courses at the intermediate level in Economics, Agricultural Economics, Food Economics, or Resource Economics.

Students lacking any of the above four competencies will need to fill these gaps before being admitted to the MFRE program. There is a place in the MFRE application form for you to explain how you will overcome these gaps in your background.

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Master of Food and Resource Economics, MFRE

Study options for this course

About Master of Food and Resource Economics, MFRE - at The University of British Columbia (UBC)

Entry requirements

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