UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has partnered with two global agricultural companies to help sustain the world’s growing population by 2050.
Limagrain, an international agricultural group, will provide $200,000 to IFAS over a three-year period, while its daughter company HM. CLAUSE will provide $100,000 over a five-year period to the Challenge 2050 project.
Through the Challenge 2050 project, students take four courses on topics such as global food-system problems to earn a Global Leadership and Change certificate.
The IFAS and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences certification program helps students create solutions to global problems.
Teresa Balser, a former dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences who was instrumental in the Challenge program, said HM. CLAUSE believed in the project when the idea was first brought to them.
“They got really excited about it, and they were the ones who initially invested money in it,” she said.
The project, which started in 2013, will bring executives from agriculture companies on campus to mentor students in the certificate program. Students may also get offered internships from the companies, according to an IFAS news release.
“What’s neat about this is it’s all students from different majors,” Balser said. “We need everybody’s perspective, we need everybody’s ideas and we need everybody working together on this.”
About 30 students are participating in each of the Fall courses for the project.
Balser said the students form bonds when trying to solve these issues.
“It’s the only class I’ve ever been in where on the last day of class they all asked for a class photo,” she said.
Christine Adams, a biology senior, said the project is important for the future of the planet.
“I think it is something we need to focus on in the future to be able to feed everyone and have a sustainable world by 2050,” Adams, 22, said. “Our population keeps on growing, so it is important to have the resources to sustain the population.”
Balser said the project has turned into something that will really make change in the world.
“For me, there’s a validation in knowing that I could bring a crazy idea to this campus, and people would get behind it and they would want to make it happen,” she said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Teresa Balser. She is not the dean of IFAS. That title does not exist. She WAS the dean of CALS.
