Posted: 7-31-2009
New distance education project will benefit rural farmers in Asia, Africa
To help improve the sustainability of agriculture and natural resources in developing nations, the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has launched a new distance education center with the nonprofit International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, or ICRISAT.
The center, formally known as the University of Florida-ICRISAT International Distance Education Center, will be based at ICRISAT headquarters in Patancheru, a city near Hyderabad, capitol of the Andhra Pradesh state in South Central India.
The first offering is a five-day on-site course on Geographic Information Systems and their application to land and water resource management, taught July 27-31 at the Patancheru ICRISAT campus. All courses offered at the center will be available to interested parties in Asian and African countries.
Larry Arrington, UF interim senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources, believes the center will strengthen UF’s presence in South Asia.
“We are pleased to partner with ICRISAT in this joint educational endeavor,” Arrington said. “This region is of great importance to our expanding international presence. Moreover, this partnership with ICRISAT provides us with an opportunity to join with our center colleagues on a wide array of research and education activities of mutual interest.”
William Dar, ICRISAT director general, said of the center, “Capacity strengthening of professionals in the developing countries is an absolute must in the current context of new vulnerabilities and opportunities in agriculture and natural resources management. We consider this as a first step in bringing research universities such as UF closer to where the developing country professionals work.”
The center’s goals include enhancing sustainability of agriculture and natural resources, and spurring greater collaboration between IFAS faculty and students and their counterparts from institutions in the region, said K. Ramesh Reddy, project leader for IFAS. Reddy is a graduate research professor and chairman of the UF soil and water science department.
The center will also lead to new opportunities for UF faculty to enhance the international reputation of UF’s educational programs in the areas of sustainable agriculture, rural/urban development, natural resources conservation and environmental protection, he said.
As a secondary activity, the center will contribute to the development of study-abroad opportunities for UF undergraduates, graduate student research, the promotion of faculty sabbaticals with institutions in South and Southeast Asia – especially India – and the facilitation of research partnerships and collaborations.
“UF has had a strong presence in other parts of the world, but we haven’t been very visible in Asia and Africa, so we are very pleased to have this program under way,” Reddy said. “This is a great opportunity.”
Thus far, 10 courses are planned, all of them to be taught by IFAS faculty members who will travel briefly to India, he said. Eventually, faculty from other UF colleges will likely be asked to teach courses, and possibly faculty from other institutions.
“We’re starting very small, we just want to make sure the idea materializes and becomes established there,” Reddy said.
As the UF presence expands at ICRISAT, the UF International Center looks forward to contributing to programmatic efforts, said David Sammons, dean of the UF International Center, who has been supportive of the distance-education center during the three-year planning process.
Participants will pay a fee to attend the courses, and revenues will help offset UF’s expenses.
The program represents ICRISAT’s first foray into distance education and has been in development about three years, he said.
One factor behind the collaboration was that several IFAS faculty members from the soil and water science department and the agricultural and biological engineering department, had previously obtained grants for research in India. They quickly recognized how broader collaboration could benefit both India and UF. The soil and water science department and UF/IFAS International Programs have played a key role in organizing the program.
ICRISAT is an international organization that conducts research and provides outreach to poor, rural farmers in the semi-arid tropics, which encompasses 48 countries on the continents of Africa and Asia. Its efforts focus primarily on the staple crops sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea and peanut.
The project leader for the initiative at ICRISAT is Venkataraman Balaji, global leader for knowledge management and sharing, in Patancheru.
Learn more about ICRISAT here
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