Our Cyber Resilience for Agriculture, Agrifood and Rural Businesses series is aimed at those eager to strengthen their confidence, knowledge and practical frameworks around cyber risks.
The series consists of the following four, standalone one-day courses:
- Cyber Resilience for Farmers and Rural Businesses
- From Farm Cyber Risk to Action
- Cyber Resilience for Agrifood and Land-Based Leaders
- Enterprise Cyber Risk and Resilience Planning
Agricultural, rural and agrifood businesses are increasingly dependent on connected technologies, digital systems, data platforms, suppliers and operational technologies. While these tools improve productivity and efficiency, they also introduce cyber, operational and business continuity risks that many organisations do not fully understand or actively manage.
This course series supports those within these businesses and supporting them to identify critical dependencies, assess vulnerabilities, prepare for disruptions and implement appropriate resilience measures.
Who is the course series suitable for?
Delegates who are keen to move from awareness to practical action in relation to cyber resilience and agriculture, agrifood and rural businesses, including:
- Farmers, farm managers, farmer clusters, producer groups and cooperatives
- Rural businesses and organisations across agriculture, agri-food, food production, land management, forestry, tourism, environmental services and related sectors
- Advisers, consultants and professional service providers supporting agricultural, rural and land-based businesses
Our Cyber Resilience for Agrifood and Land-Based Leaders and Enterprise Cyber Risk and Resilience Planning courses are particularly designed for leaders and managers including senior leadership teams within and adjacent to agriculture, agrifood and rural businesses.
What you’ll achieve at the end of each course
Cyber Resilience for Farmers and Rural Businesses
Our practical and interactive introductory course:
- Gain a jargon-free understanding of cyber resilience within modern farming, agrifood and rural enterprises
- Explore connected technologies, digital dependencies, common cyber threats and practical actions to improve operational resilience and business continuity
- Take away a connected farm dependency map and prioritised resilience actions
From Farm Cyber Risk to Action
An action-focused workshop-style course:
- Identify critical business services, operational dependencies and connected technologies that support day-to-day operations
- Recognise and assess cyber and operational risks, including fraud, ransomware, supplier compromise, service outages and data disruption
- Learn how to prioritise risks, taking away your own 30-day, 60-day and 90-day resilience plan, risk registers and incident recovery checklists
Cyber Resilience for Agrifood and Land-Based Leaders
A leadership-focused course exploring cyber resilience as a strategic business issue through practical scenario tasks and executive-level discussions:
- Recognise and assess cyber and operational risks, including fraud, ransomware, supplier compromise, service outages and data disruption
- Evaluate the impact of cyber incidents on production, animal welfare, safety, compliance, cash flow, traceability and reputation
Enterprise Cyber Risk and Resilience Planning
A facilitated workshop-style course:
- Identify critical business services, operational dependencies and connected technologies that support day-to-day operations
- Develop practical approaches to risk assessment, prioritisation, resilience planning and recovery
- Build and test cyber resilience action plans, risk registers, recovery frameworks and incident response processes using realistic agricultural and agri-food scenarios
- Take away a prioritised 90-day resilience roadmap for implementation
A CPD Certificate of Completion
On course completion, you will receive a CPD Certificate of Completion endorsed by the RAU.
How are courses delivered?
We offer the courses in person at our Cirencester campus. Each course takes place over one-and-a-half-days.
Day one
Arrive at 4.00 pm for your course introduction, followed by dinner at 7.00 pm with your fellow delegates and course leaders.
Day two
The course will continue from 8.30 am – 4.00 pm.
Course cost
Each course is £1000+VAT per delegate.
This includes teaching, overnight accommodation at our Cirencester campus and all meals (dinner on day one and breakfast & lunch on day two).
A 20% discount is available to a limited number of RAU students.
About the course leaders
Each course is delivered by Lee Hibbert and Dr David Bozward.
Lee Hibbert
Lee is a PhD researcher and practitioner focused on the nexus of organisational resilience, cyber statecraft and the operational transition from peacetime posture to war‑fighting readiness. His research and advisory work draw on more than three decades of leadership across public‑ and private‑sector resilience, including operational roles in post‑conflict environments and work with national transformation programmes.
His academic foundation began with an MSc in Business Continuity, Crisis and Security Management, followed by an MSc in Organisational Resilience under Professor Phil Woods.
Lee advises senior leaders and policymakers on bridging the peacetime-warfighting readiness gap: aligning strategy, governance and investment to anticipate disruptive change, harden critical systems, and embed anticipatory decision‑making across organisations. His approach combines operational realism, evidence‑based research and a commitment to reducing preventable human harm.
Dr David Bozward
David is currently advising high-growth SMEs on commercialisation, scaling, funding readiness, business model development and strategic partnerships. He also serves as a Board Trustee at Albion Business School, contributing to strategic oversight, academic quality, institutional development and employability-led education.
David previously held senior leadership roles at Global Banking School, where he led a 52-person employability and entrepreneurship function supporting over 38,000 students, and at the Royal Agricultural University, where he headed the business school and contributed to institutional strategy, programme redesign, recruitment growth and enterprise development.
Alongside his education and innovation expertise, David has a strong technology and consulting background, having held senior roles in telecoms, mobile services, product development, digital ventures and international technology projects. This gives him a distinctive ability to connect board-level governance with digital transformation, cyber resilience, operational risk and commercial growth.
His current advisory focus includes board readiness, cyber and risk resilience, executive governance, innovation strategy, post-quantum resilience, SME transformation and regional economic development. He combines academic credibility, practical consultancy experience and board-level judgement to support organisations seeking stronger governance, clearer strategy and greater resilience in uncertain markets.
Why choose the RAU?
We have been at the forefront of agricultural education and key contributor to the land-based sector for over 180 years and are proud of our high-quality Continuing Professional Development courses.
The key benefits of our Cyber Resilience for Agriculture, Agrifood and Rural Businesses series are:
Practical
Build your applied skills with structured learning focused on practical action and decision-making, not theoretical cyber security concepts, with real-world agrifood and rural business scenarios and case studies.
Relevant
Acquire tangible outputs including dependency maps, risk registers, resilience action plans, recovery checklists and implementation roadmaps, to support your ongoing cyber resilience.
Accessible
Concentrate on learning with course content with no prior technical knowledge required.
Engaging
Share your ideas, learn from others and expand your network with like-minded professionals.
Personalised
A small cohort ensures you personalised feedback in a supportive environment.
Register your interest
To register your interest in this course, please get in touch via our continuing professional development enquiry form or call +44(0)1285 889850.
If you have any queries or would like to learn more about the course, please also get in touch via the form above or call +44(0)1285 889850.
Bespoke course options
We understand that organisations have unique needs when it comes to continuing professional development.
We can:
- deliver this course specifically to your organisation
- tailor this course to best suit your organisation
- design an exclusive, bespoke course for your organisation
For more information, visit our Bespoke Continuing Professional Courses webpage here.
Ready to upskill your staff?
Please get in touch via our continuing professional development enquiry form or call +44(0)1285 889850 to discuss your bespoke continuing development course requirements with our CPD team.
Funding options
If you are looking at grants to cover the cost of attending our course, you may meet the requirements for Gloucestershire Disability Fund's well-being grants which can fund education and training for adults. For more information, visit the Gloucestershire Disability Fund website here.
Additionally, you may meet the requirements for funding from The Morley Agricultural Foundation. For more information, visit The Morley Agricultural Foundation website here.
Terms and conditions
Read our terms and conditions for short courses and CPD training here.
Please read these carefully before booking.