Global Open Agriculture and Food University Launched

New program will provide first-rate higher education in developing countries

In Mexico, CGIAR launched the Global Open Agriculture and Food University. This new program will offer long distance learning using information communications technologies, in collaboration with partner institutions in developing countries.

"Agriculture has become a knowledge-intensive field. Improvements in agricultural productivity and natural resource management - which boost incomes of poor people - require the best available science," noted Kanayo Nwanze, director general of the Africa Rice Center.

The university will draw upon 35 years of CGIAR science research, as well as the work of the CGIAR's many national agricultural research partners and collaborators across the globe.

"By allowing the next generation of professionals to enhance their skills without leaving their countries, CGIAR's new program will make learning available to many more people, and it will reduce both the cost and time required for higher education," commented Wilberforce Kisamba-Mugerwa, director of the International Service for National Agricultural Research Program at IFPRI.