Agricultural Sciences

This course examines the impact of food policy and of regulatory framework on price, production, and trade flows, incomes, rural communities, the environment, agriculture, food processing, and retailing. Students in the course analyze the development and impact of food policy in Europe, the US, and in other selected countries. On completion of the course, students are able to: discuss the different approaches to policy analysis; employ different theoretical approaches to the study of food policy; describe contemporary food and agricultural policies in selected developed market economies; assess the impact of contemporary food and agricultural policies in selected developed market economies; and assess the implications of current policy developments for the Irish agricultural and food sectors.

This course examines the mechanics and productivity of a broad range of forest harvesting systems, as well as topics on forest access.

This course examines forest classification and the application of silvics in forest management, including world forest classification systems, the Biogeoclimactic Ecosystem Classification system, and ecosystem diagnosis in the field.

This course examines research philosophies and the scientific method, with special emphasis on field research. 

This course introduces the fascinating world of Sensory Science, where humans are the ultimate instruments to experience and evaluate food quality. It covers the senses, how to use them to perform sensory evaluation of foods, how to choose between different sensory methods and panels, and how to analyze sensory data in a meaningful way. The course discusses general principles of sensory measurements (discrimination, ranking and scaling), pitfalls in sensory evaluation (carry-over effects, response biases, etc.) and how to deal with them in experimental settings. Special attention is on performing difference tests, descriptive profiling and consumer acceptance tests, the challenges in the sensory laboratory and working with sensory panels, as well as data analysis (e.g. checking panel performance and product differences). The course also looks at how to relate descriptive data with instrumental analyses of foods and emerging tools for descriptive analysis (e.g. machine learning applications). Finally, it introduces the wider implications of changing sensory quality for food reward and nutrition behavior. Besides lectures. the course includes hands-on sensory exercises where students learn about their own senses, and work in groups on different methods for sensory evaluation. It arranges “dry” exercises to work with course materials and sensory data to get confident in applying your sensory skills.

In special cases and with the approval of the instructor concerned, a student may carry out directed studies of specific problems in forestry. 

This course addresses the particularities of production systems of salmonids (salmon and trout) so that students acquire the specific language, understand its biological bases and relate them to commercial production of salmonid species for human consumption. Special emphasis is placed on the activity in Chile, its requirements, characteristics and cultivation systems.