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Penn State Ag Students Tour European Agriculture - December 2005

December 6, 2005

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - Last summer, students from Penn State and other universities toured Western Europe for three weeks to witness first-hand sustainable agriculture systems and the roles they play in global agriculture.

The trip was part of a larger effort designed to promote scientific cooperation and collaborative education between academic and professional communities in Europe and the United States. The program, called Sustainable Crop Protection in Agriculture Program (SUSPROT), allows graduate and undergraduate students to spend time in one of four institutes in Western Europe to gain a global perspective on sustainable agriculture.

According to Ed Rajotte, professor of entomology at Penn State, the students attended a class during the Spring 2005 semester that provided a practical overview of European agriculture from production through food processing and distribution. "The first phase of the course provided both academic and practical preparation for the second phase of the course - a study tour to the four European SUSPROT collaborators - Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and France - which focused on sustainable agriculture," Dr. Rajotte explains.

Nine students from Penn State, two students from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and two students from University of California, Davis participated in the class and subsequent 21-day European tour. According to Marilyn McPheron, study abroad coordinator in Office of International Programs at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, the students and faculty visited sustainable agriculture farms, vineyards, greenhouses and flower markets. "The students were also able to explore such issues as water pollution and the changing role of farmers in modern agriculture," she reports.

According to McPheron, the Office of International Programs feels strongly that agricultural students must understand how agriculture works in other countries. "These students are going to be making the agriculture policies of the future and they can only make good ones if they understand the entire picture and that includes how agriculture intersects globally. The quickest way to make this clear to students is through an international experience," McPheron says.

According to Dr. Frédéric Marion-Poll, Professor at INA P-G, a partnering university in France, the goal of the program is to link together an academic exchange with research being conducted in the field. "This will allow us to better promote scientific cooperation and collaborative education between academic and professional communities in the European Community and the United States," he explains.

Currently, the program is focusing on the broad issue of sustainable agriculture, an issue that has been garnering increasing support and acceptance within mainstream agriculture in recent years. Specifically, the partners are most interested in the pest management and insect-plant interaction components. "Sustainable agriculture addresses many environmental and social concerns and offers innovative and economically viable opportunities for everyone involved in the food system," says Dr. Marion-Poll. "While the program's focus will continue to be on sustainable agriculture, in the future we plan to integrating other disciplines, such as plant pathology. We'll be able to attract more students into these fields and use world class research to solve real-world problems, resulting in a safer food supply."

Students who want to get involved will have another chance next summer. According to Walter Leal, professor of entomology at UC Davis, one of the participating faculty in the SUSPROT program, a three-week summer school taking place in four European countries is being planned for graduate students. "The summer school will be more research oriented than the previous tour, concentrating on the field of chemical ecology," he says. In addition, Penn State's Department of Entomology is hosting participating SUSPROT faculty for guest lectures. Dr. Joop van Loon, associate professor at Wageningen University, Netherlands, recently gave a presentation about his research involving plant-insect interactions.

Last year's tour participants were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the experience and encourage anyone with interest to apply for upcoming opportunities. Benjamin Hartman, a junior Agroecology major at Penn State, says his first international experience truly expanded his vision. "I learned so many new things and met such interesting people. I learned enough about Europe to fill several history books, and also about sustainability, world markets, agriculture, and most importantly, I've learned a lot about myself," he says. Another student, Rich Hoover, a senior environmental resource management major at Penn State, said the program increased his interest in getting a hands-on education in sustainable agriculture. "It made me more aware of the enormity of international agriculture and showed me that agriculture faces similar problems in Europe as in America," he comments.

According to Deanna Behring, director for international programs at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, the SUSPROT program targets graduate students, who are the faculty of the future, so they will be prepared to address global problems. "SUSPROT is part of the College's strategic plan to increase opportunities for students, faculty and staff to engage in appropriate international activities such as field trips, case studies, internships, study tours and study abroad programs to prepare global ready graduates," Behring explains.

The project is funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) of the U.S. Department of Education and the EU-US Cooperation Programme in Higher Education and Vocational Education Training of the European Commission. Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is the lead US institution in a consortium of seven agricultural universities including University of California, Davis; University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne; Gembloux Agricultural University, Belgium; Universitat Hohenhiem, Germany; Wageningen University and Research Center, Netherlands; and Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA-PG), France.

Students or faculty interested in study abroad options should contact McPheron at 814-863-0249 or mbm8@psu.edu. For more information on the international tour, see Web site http://ourstudyabroad.org/france/. For more information on the SUSPROT program at Penn State, visit Web site http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/international/ FIPSEMain.htm or the European Web site at http://quasimodo.versailles.inra.fr/inapg/SUSPROT/.

The College of Agricultural Sciences and its Office of International Programs are committed to preparing the workforce of the future by providing students with the best education and skills necessary to function in and contribute to the current global environment and business demands. The College has well-established programs for graduate and undergraduate students to visit other countries as part of their curriculum or graduate research. For more information on the Office of International Programs, visit their Web site at http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/international/.