Shropshire university teams up with Africa to shape future of farming
Agriculture is the biggest source of employment across the African continent. So, it is no wonder that Shropshire’s Harper Adams University is working so closely with people there.
With the university, juts outside Newport, specialising in education for the agricultural and rural sector, it has tapped into the resources on offer in African countries.
From research projects to the development of new courses, the partnership is helping to shape the farming of the future.
Half a dozen of its projects and partnerships are happening in Kenya. One of these is with the Strathmore Business School in Nairobi, which is running a junior management trainee programme developed by Harper Adams and the AGCO Corporation, a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of agricultural equipment.
The AGCO Agribusiness Qualification Programme is the first of its kind in Africa and 20 students have just completed their first weeks of training.
It is a follow-up to last year’s memorandum of understanding between AGCO, Harper Adams University and The Bridge Africa to have more students trained in agribusiness and be better equipped to solve the food security challenges facing Africa.
The university had already worked together on farming projects with AGCO, which runs a ‘Future Farm’ in Zambia. The Future Farm is a fairly new concept that aims to provide agriculture solutions for African farmers, allowing local communities to develop sustainable food production systems.
