What makes a person an Entrepreneur?

Last week I asked a group of folks what they thought defined an ‘Agriculture Entrepreneur’. I’ve asked this question to a lot of folks over the past several months and the answers are as varied as the people I’ve interacted with. The comments I heard last week was…”it’s being a farmer or rancher”, “it’s knowing how to run an agribusiness”, “it’s the willingness to try something new or different”. The last answer was in line with an entrepreneur, but the first two were not necessarily associated with being an Agriculture Entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs (Ag-related or otherwise) are those willing try something new or different, which inherently has greater risk of failure. Entrepreneurs are willing to take chances that most other people are not willing to try. And though farmers and rancher take on substantial risk, the focus should be on opportunities to mitigate or reduce overall operational risks. In other words, an Agriculture Entrepreneur is a ‘Risk-taker’ with the goal of changing or improving a process, pathway, or product to generate a better outcome!