Advanced Crop Improvement: Meeting Challenges for Food Security is a two week, intensive short course that will take place at the AfricaRice Regional Training Center in St. Louis, Senegal from October 27 to November 9, 2019. The short course aims to train a new generation of plant scientists who understand and are able to rationally discuss challenging science issues related to international food security, and who can effectively communicate science to a broad and diverse audience.
The Advanced Crop Improvement short course will bring the science and sociological issues alive to the participants by showcasing real-world issues faced in crop production and by delving deeply into state-of-the-art crop improvement methods and the sometimes controversial issues associated with their use. Participants will experience diverse cropping systems, and will interact directly with international agricultural scientists as well as consumers and growers.
These opportunities will provide participants with an appreciation for the complexity of adopting new technologies in the developed and developing worlds. Ultimately, the participants will understand how the science of crop improvement intimately links to food security, the national and international politics of food and agriculture, and science communication.