Agricultural Sciences

This course examines key contemporary issues in international agricultural development – including food security, food safety, poverty reduction, climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the effects of the financial crisis on agricultural development, food crises and food aid etc. The agriculture for development highlights two major regional challenges, which are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Agricultural productivity growth is vital for stimulating growth in other parts of the economy, but accelerated growth requires a sharp productivity increase in small holder farming combined with more effective support to the millions coping as subsistence farmers, many of them in remote areas. The success will also depend on concerted action by the international development community to confront the challenges ahead. We must level the playing field in goods, such as technologies for tropical food staples; help developing countries address climate change; and overcome looming health pandemics for plants, animals, and humans.

The course offers a study of the theoretical bases and principles that guide sustainable production, recognizing the role of societies, nature, and their territories, and the virtuous relationship established between them. It includes practical experience by maintaining an established orchard through activities such as: sowing, pruning, maintaining an irrigation system, among other activities. Community work in the urban garden fosters discussion of solutions for facing urban demands for quality food while taking into account the conservation and restoration of natural resources such as water, soil, flora, and fauna biodiversity. 

This course examines food microbiology; microbial ecology of foods (effects of water activity, pH, temperature, etc); significance, characteristics and control of important food borne pathogens; (bacteria, viruses, fungi, seafood toxins, parasites, prions); food borne illness; indicator organisms; methods for examination of foods, regulatory standards; food borne illness; practical culture-based microbiological examination of foods; and outbreak investigations.

This course introduces food systems and their actors as a framework for understanding and analyzing the development in the food sector. It provides a basis for handling future changes of food systems in a societal context. The course explores food systems and food networks as conceptualizations of the complex system behind food products and as useful tool in analysis of food related developments. It examines the historical development and structure of food systems (mainstream and alternative food systems), including an overview of changing technologies; structure, location, and actors as well as salient political issues characterizing food systems in different periods. The course then discusses the governance of food systems, including an introduction to dynamics of policy processes, and questions of the power and interests of core actors as well the role of social movements. Finally, it presents key concepts and theories useful for understanding an analyzing the development and transition of food systems, such as socio-material approaches to food systems change, sustainability, and actor understandings.