Teagasc UCC International Agriculture Student Development Programme

Teagasc and University College Cork (UCC) have come together to provide a new support programme for students from a number of agriculture focussed universities and institutes in developing countries. This new initiative is co-ordinated through the “Teagasc UCC International Agriculture Student Development Programme” and supports the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 13 – Climate Action).

The new programme will provide direct education, mentoring and support for an initial tranche of three Walsh Scholar PhD students from East Africa who will be registered with UCC, and will be co-supervised by Teagasc staff in Moorepark.

The students will work on Climate Smart Dairy Production with the initial work areas clustered around improved dairy breeding, forage production, forage conservation, and farm system optimisation. 

Each of the study areas are integrated into larger institutional support and development projects in Kenya, Eritrea and Tanzania supported by Irish Aid and the EU DeSIRA funding.

The new initiative will provide co-ordinated support from Ireland to colleagues in similar institutes in developing countries as they strive to develop an optimal climate smart food production system suited to their own country.

It will also provide a new knowledge exchange network between Ireland and the three countries that will extend beyond the life of the projects and support provided under this programme.

Teagasc and UCC staff recently met two of the students participating in the programme at Teagasc Moorepark.