LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – The European Commission's ERASMUS+ Capacity Building for Higher Education funded project on developing a Joint MS Food Security and Climate Change program has been completed and is currently undergoing approval in partner universities who will implement it by AY 2020-2021. The developed program will continue to run under the University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC) projects.
The MS FSCC aims to develop professionals who will address the challenges of food security in the context of the ASEAN integrated market. The developed joint degree was based on the model of Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees in Europe. Participating institutions planning to offer the degree include Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Selangor, Malaysia, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) in Indonesia, Kasetsart University (KU) in Bangkok, Thailand, and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. These HEIs have been working together within the UC with SEARCA serving as Secretariat.
Simultaneous with the development of the joint curriculum since 2017, the project has offered a double/dual degree in MS FSCC with three batches of students successfully participating until 2019. These students participated in exchanges in Southeast Asia and in Europe, summer schools, and joint research. The Summer School is an intensive course on Sustainability Assessment in Agricultural Production and Food Processing and is a required course in MS FSCC which combines theory, case studies, group discussions, and fieldwork. It was first conducted in 2017 at UGM in Yogyakarta, Indonesia with the theme: Integrated Forestry Farming System: A Transition to Food Security in a Changing Climate. This was followed in 2018 with Oil Palm-Cattle Integration: A Transition Towards Sustainability in Food Security and Climate Change hosted by UPM in Malaysia and in 2019, organized by UPLB in the Philippines with the theme Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems in Vulnerable Areas.
These activities were vital in improving the joint MS FSCC curriculum that was being developed as it brought together students and experts from different parts of Southeast Asia and Europe which created a global discussion on the issues of food security and climate change. One of the dual/double MS FSCC graduates, Mr. Ariyanto Kurnia Bagus, received three MS degrees from IPB, KU, and Montpellier SupAgro.
Back-to-back with the Summer Schools were the Training of Trainers (ToT) which aims to assist selected staff and faculty members of the partner institutions in terms of planning and implementing the MS FSCC core courses and in handling the technical and administrative challenges that come with it. Other Southeast Asian partners of the project who have also participated in the activities but are non-UC members include Chiang Mai University and Prince of Songkla University both in Thailand, Central Luzon State University (CLSU) in the Philippines, Nilai University in Malaysia, and University of Battambang (UB) and Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) both in Cambodia. RUA and CLSU both expressed their intention to also offer the developed joint degree in MS FSCC.
With plans for the program and its activities to continue under the UC starting 2020, Universitas Brawijaya who just became a regular member in 2019, expressed interest in offering the joint MS FSCC in their university. The institution was also set to host the 2020 Summer School which was postponed due to COVID-19. Tokyo University of Agriculture (Tokyo-NODAI) and National Taiwan University (NTU), UC associate members, also committed to accept MS FSCC students for the non-degree mobility. The network of institutions offering the activities enables students to get the best offerings and perspectives from different universities by taking courses and conducting research.
