#AskAg Twitter Chat: Agricultural Higher Education

Event Information

Investing in agriculture in higher education has the potential to be one of the most immediate and positive contributors to impacting and transforming food and agriculture systems in the near future. But a knowledgeable and committed cohort of farmers will require agriculture training and education in order to farm efficiently and effectively to produce the food that an exponentially increasing population will need to sustain itself. Please join Kurt Richter (@KurtRichter2) of the Office of International Research, Education and Development at Virginia Tech,  David Kraybill (@kraybillds) of Ohio State University, and Clara Cohen of USAID’s Bureau for Food Security as they discuss the importance of tertiary agriculture education (TAE) in the developing world, traditional and novel ways TAE is executed around the globe, and how TAE can help us meet the challenges of 2050 by feeding the expected 9 billion people the planet will inhabit.

You can also follow the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (@SANREMCRSP) and the InnovATE project (@inno_VATE) to learn more about agricultural education and training.

Guiding questions

  1. Why is tertiary agricultural education (TAE) important for transforming ag and food systems? Please share your experiences.
  2. How should we balance classroom instruction, research, and technical training when designing TAE programs?
  3. How can modern ICT best be used in tertiary ag education?
  4. How do we make pursuing a degree in TAE attractive and affordable to students?

How to participate

  • If you are new to Twitter, visit Twitter.com to sign up for an account. (For more tips on getting started, check out our Twitter 101 Training.)
  • Explore the guiding questions that will be discussed during the chat.
  • Join us for discussion on February 14 at 12 pm EST by using the hashtag #AskAg and following @Agrilinks. You can also follow along through the livestream below.

Livestream

Speakers

David Kraybill

David Kraybill

Ohio State University

David Kraybill specializes in economic development and is a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State University. Presently he is the project director for the USAID-sponsored Innovative Agricultural Research Initiative (iAGRI) based at Sokoine University, Morogoro, Tanzania, a program which strengthens training and collaborative research capacities of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and the Tanzanian National Agriculture Research System (NARS). Kraybill is the recipient of the International Award of Merit from the Gamma Sigma Delta agriculture honor society and has served as consultant advisor to the World Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, Southeast Consortium for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and numerous governments and other organizations.

Kurt Richter

Kurt Richter

Virginia Tech

Kurt Richter is Associate Director for Technical Assistance and Special Initiatives in the Office of International Research, Education and Development at Virginia Tech. He is currently a lead advisor on the USAID-funded agriculture education program, innovATE (Innovation in Agricultural Training and Education). This initiative is a partnership with Pennsylania State University, Tuskegee University and University of Florida which seeks to assist schools in the developing world improve their curriculum and strengthen administrative capacity in the agriculture sector. Richter has nearly 20 years of international education and development experience and has served as Team Leader and Chief of Party for USAID food aid projects in Guatemala and Colombia, respectively. He has also provided long-term leadership to USAID projects in the Republic of Georgia and Afghanistan and short-term technical assistance in numerous other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Clara K.

USAID

Clara Cohen joined USAID's Bureau for Food Security, Office of Agricultural Research and Policy, in 2011. She leads Office activities focusing on human and institutional capacity development and has contributed to the design and launch of several new programs emphasizing research and education system strengthening. Previously, she worked as a Research Scholar for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Health and Global Change Unit, in Vienna, Austria, and at the US National Academy of Sciences, where she designed and implemented the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded African Science Academy Development Initiative, a 10-year effort to strengthen the capability of African science academies to inform national health policy. She also directed studies on agricultural research, including a Congressionally mandated review of the four research agencies under USDA's Research, Education, and Economics Mission Area (ERS, ARS, CSREES, and NASS). She served as an AAAS Diplomacy Fellow in USAID's Center for Economic Growth and Agricultural Development from 1998–2000. Clara conducted research on leguminous cover crops at the Rodale Institute Research Center in 1991 and served as a Peace Corps aquaculture volunteer in Guatemala from 1988–1990. She holds a BA in biology from Swarthmore College and a PhD in plant physiology and molecular biology from Cornell University.

Event Registration Information

Spotlight Event

In-person Event
Online Eastern Time Zone, United States

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