Introduction
Today's world faces two great challenges: climate change and the global economic crisis, where underdeveloped countries are the most affected by existing inequalities in the distribution of resources. It is Cuba's responsibility to put into practice strategies to minimize its effects, based on the rational use and saving of the scarce resources it possesses, for which the participation of all workers and especially specialists in the economy is necessary in achieving a efficient control of them, so a professional pedagogical process that responds to these aspirations is required.
The Cuban economy faces the challenge of achieving greater efficiency through saving and strict control of resources. Economists have an effective tool for this: the accurate and timely recording of economic events that occur in the entities, which serves as basis for decision-making that guide economic development.
Today food production has become a matter of national security and the country is undergoing a process of transformation, of rebuilding its agrarian system.
For this reason, it is important to provide educators in the economic branch with the necessary tools to understand the planning, execution, registration and control of costs in the agricultural activity, allowing them to carry out analyzes of production cost, performance, the cost-benefit ratio, profitability, supply and demand, as analysts and consultants of managers and farmers, which also implies knowing the advantages and disadvantages of sustainable agriculture.
The objective of this work is the methodological analysis of the Discipline Costs to incorporate Agricultural Education into the contents of the subjects of this discipline, Cost I and Cost II, contemplated in Study Plan D in force at the University of Pedagogical Sciences "Felix Varela ”of Villa Clara.
Development
The modernization and development of the agricultural sector, in a globalized economy, will be possible with the implementation of protection policies and technology adoption, which allows producers to launch quality and value-added products to domestic and foreign markets, where Agents, micro, small, medium and large producers, are capable of administering, managing and controlling their investments and their profitability, thus contributing to economic growth and development.
The practice of accounting should become a means of connection between the basic document of the economic fact and the administrative fact that results in the registration of the accounts that make up the financial reports. For this reason, accounting is a process of tabulating data, which provides information to all users about the situation and economic and financial movement of an organization.
The Discipline Costs constitutes an essential support in the economic training of the students of the Economics degree of the Bachelor of Education in the UCP, helps them to constructively understand the development of different types of economic activities, the insights of the performance of the different economic laws, branch government provisions and their financial economic legislation.
Costs as part of Constructive Accounting is a continuation of General or Financial Accounting, so the knowledge related to the latter constitutes its fundamental support, the good understanding and better understanding of cost as an economic category has its raison d'être in the elements of the General Accounting, in fact will be revealed throughout its development.
The recording of expenses and the analysis of their behavior is the subject of Cost Accounting, which has the following main objectives:
- Evaluation of the efficiency regarding the use of material and financial resources that are used in production or in other activities carried out by the entity.
- Basis for the justification and determination of the prices of the products or services provided.
- Assessment of possible decisions to be made that allow the selection of the one that provides the greatest benefit (utility) with the minimum of expenses.
- Classification of expenses according to their nature and origin.
- Analysis of wage expenses and their behavior with respect to the norms established for the production in question.
- Analysis of expenses to project their reduction.
- Analysis of the expenses of each structural subdivision of the entity, based on the expense budgets that are prepared for it.
From the previous objectives arises that cost constitutes a normative and evaluative element of the entity's management, hence its importance as a management tool for what is required by management personnel, mastery of the aspects that characterize its content. and characteristics.
The production cost represents the expenses that the entity incurs in a given period and that are recovered, through the act of sale, from the income that they represent.
The cost is applicable to both productive activities and any other activity, agriculture is one of them.
Cost is an important management tool, since it allows analyzing the behavior of expenses associated with a given production or activity, as well as assessing the possible decisions to be made regarding the production or activity that allow maximizing profits with the minimum expenses. In addition, the comparative analysis of the behavior of the cost allows to carry out market analysis regarding the behavior of the price of the products.
To achieve the fundamental objectives, it is necessary that the recording of expenses is faithful and timely and that they are compared with the established norms and budgets.
The use of cost plays an important role in planning material, financial and labor resources; both those required in a production or activity, and those consumed by the different structural subdivisions of the entities.
Cost planning aims to put into practice all the reserves that exist to reduce production costs. Its basis is the setting of standards for work expenses, material and financial resources.
One of the most important questions regarding the cost of production or service is the cost analysis with its different techniques, which are used depending on the choice made.
Using cost as a management tool in the agricultural sector means:
- Detect the reserves of cost reduction, that is, determine where they can be reduced, without affecting the quality of the product.
- Know the behavior of the expenses of the structural subdivisions, determine the deviations if any, their causes and propose the measures for their elimination.
- Decide on which productions to make, which ones to replace or which ones to innovate, that produce the minimum of expenses.
- Decide the levels of activity that produce the maximum profit or desired.
- Decide the level of the prices of products and services, in relation to those of the market competition.
- Make investments that result in increased activity levels and profits as well as import substitution.
- Optimize the use of the workforce and propose measures for its stimulation.
Agricultural accounting as a financial information system fulfills three functions: it accumulates, measures and communicates economic and financial data. Hence, the accounting information that is reflected first in the accounts and then in financial reports, must be timely, relevant and reliable.
In the program of the subject Costs topic 1 Cost Accounting. Importance and Basic Terminology, has the following contents:
General aspects about the nature of Cost Accounting and its advantages over Financial Accounting. Cost as an economic category.
The cost of Production and the Social Costs of Production, elements that make it up. Classification of Costs and Expenses according to their behavior in relation to the volume of production, the responsibility for their control, their economic nature, their origin and destination, and the activity within the company. The scheme of extended reproduction and Cost Accounting. The Cost in the different productive and non-productive activities. Control accounts for recording the operations of the production process and the distribution of products. Cost indicators. Total Cost, Prime Cost, Conversion Cost, Total Unit Cost, Fixed and Variable Unit Costs its importance in cost analysis and decision-making in the direction of the production process.
Relationship of costs with Profit, Profitability and the formation of Prices. Importance of its control for the direction of production in the socialist company.
Taking into account the above, during the development of the conference to the fourth year students of the specialty of Economics of the University in Pedagogical Sciences, the actions that must be carried out during the class to insert the contents of Agricultural Education are the following:
- Explain the importance of Cost Accounting for agricultural entities as a tool for planning, control and analysis of production costs, which as an instrument in decision-making, allows raising economic efficiency, satisfying food needs of society, substitute imports and increase and diversify exports.
- Analyze the particularities of the cost in agriculture given by the environment in which agricultural production is developed and the factors that intervene in the formation of these that directly influence the economic results of the agricultural company and in the fulfillment of the plan.
- Analyze the elements that make up the cost of agricultural production, their influence on the increase in economic results and the need to reduce it.
- Evaluate with the students what actions can be carried out by agricultural companies in order to reduce the cost of their productions, raise production with quality, that is competitive, based on the development of sustainable agriculture.
- Highlight that today food production has become a matter of national security and the agricultural sector has priority due to the crises that the current world is going through.
- Present examples of the above with updated data on the world situation and Cuba in particular, in relation to agricultural production and food.
- Explain the classification of expenses and costs in agricultural companies, taking into account their behavior in relation to the volume of production, their economic nature, their origin and destination.
- Exemplify the expenses incurred by the different entities of the agricultural sector from the previous classification, as well as the conformation of the production costs in them.
- Explain the control accounts for the registration of the operations of the agricultural production process and the distribution of the products.
- Demonstrate through an exercise with data from companies in the territory the calculation of the cost indicators and their registration.
- Highlight in summary the importance of cost analysis for decision-making, as well as the relationship of costs with profit, profitability and price formation, since the decrease in these and the increase in production depends on the decrease in the prices of agricultural products in the market and the increase in the needs of the population.
Conclusions
Due to the importance of Cost Accounting, professionals and students must be involved in the study and deepening of this, engaging in the insertion of the process of registration and control of the costs of agricultural activity and not only that of industrial activity. Research should be carried out to this end, due to the importance of the subject, and special attention should be given within the disciplines of the Economics degree. recommendations
• Systematize the methodological work within the Cost Discipline group as an instrument in methodological work and gradually incorporate into all subjects the Agricultural Education of the Economics degree at the UCP "Félix Varela".
Bibliography
• Joimen and Estévez. Accounting of Agricultural Costs. ENPES editions. MONTH, Havana, 1987.
• Horngren Charles T. Cost Accounting in Business Management. Editions. Revolutionary. Cuban Book Institute. 1969 and University of Havana 1996.
• ______________ Cost Accounting, A Management Approach. Editorial Prentice / International Hall. Fourth edition 1977.
• Family Farming Manual. Villa Clara. ACTAF Library, March 2010.
• Ramírez, Pérez, Adaís. Cost Study Material. Collective of authors UCP "Blas Roca Calderío". Granma.
• Reyes Rodríguez, Marlene and co-authors. Agricultural Fundamentals. Editorial Pueblo y Educación, City of Havana. Cuba. 2nd. Edition, 2004.
