Revamp agricultural syllabus with robotics says UWI professor

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Agri­cul­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Prof Mark Wud­di­vi­ra be­lieves the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil should in­cor­po­rate lessons on agri­cul­tur­al ro­bot­ics, pre­ci­sion farm­ing, and biotech­nol­o­gy as it re­views the cur­ricu­lum for the Agri­cul­ture Sci­ence syl­labus.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Prof Wud­di­vi­ra said any move to elim­i­nate the Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence Dou­ble Award from the CXC syl­labus will have sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean.

At a time when glob­al food se­cu­ri­ty re­mains a press­ing con­cern, Prof Wud­di­vi­ra said 53 per cent of the Caribbean pop­u­la­tion re­mains food in­se­cure.

He said there should be a com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of ex­perts who can de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to en­sure sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion. He al­so called for an agri-food sys­tem that was mod­ern, strong, and re­silient.

Gov­ern­ments, acad­e­mia, the pri­vate sec­tor, and civ­il so­ci­ety, he said, should con­tribute to this.

“We must ex­plore ways to make this vi­tal dis­ci­pline more at­trac­tive and ac­ces­si­ble to stu­dents so that our de­ci­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time when we are wrestling with pre­car­i­ous ex­tra-re­gion­al food im­port bills and the at­ten­dant food in­se­cu­ri­ty are ben­e­fi­cial to achieve sus­tain­able goals,” he rec­om­mend­ed.

And while CXC has backpedalled on its plans to re­move the Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence dou­ble award, Prof Wud­di­vi­ra said the im­por­tance of Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence can­not be over­stat­ed.

“It is a field that com­bines prac­ti­cal skills with sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge to im­prove food pro­duc­tion, man­age nat­ur­al re­sources ef­fi­cient­ly, and con­tribute to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. The ig­no­rance of what agri­cul­ture is, has been deaf­en­ing. Sur­pris­ing­ly, this ig­no­rance per­me­ates all ranks of the Caribbean so­ci­ety,” he added.

He not­ed that the pub­lic should be aware that agri­cul­ture is a sci­ence and must be treat­ed as one, with sim­i­lar pres­tige.

“With­out sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and in­no­va­tion, our agri-food sys­tems will re­main in­ad­e­quate and not fit for pur­pose,” he con­tend­ed.

He not­ed that the is­sue of lim­it­ed arable land was raised at the In­ter­na­tion­al Sci­ence Coun­cil SIDS Li­ai­son Com­mit­tee (ISC SIDS LC) re­cent­ly con­clud­ed the SIDS 4 Con­fer­ence in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

“Re­duc­ing op­tions in Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence risks los­ing a cadre of pro­fes­sion­als equipped to tack­le food se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture,” he ex­plained. He called for Caribbean gov­ern­ments to col­lab­o­rate with agri­cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, and the pri­vate sec­tor to cre­ate aware­ness about the im­por­tance of agri­cul­ture in na­tion­al and glob­al con­texts.

“Schol­ar­ships, in­tern­ships, and ex­po­sure to mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al tech­nolo­gies can make the sub­ject more ap­peal­ing,” he said. He al­so called for the in­te­gra­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion.

Prof Wud­di­vi­ra al­so said com­mu­ni­ty and school gar­dens can spark in­ter­est. He al­so called for part­ner­ships with high­er ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions, not­ing that col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­grammes with uni­ver­si­ties can of­fer dual-cred­it cours­es and ear­ly col­lege ex­pe­ri­ences in agri­cul­ture.

“Many stu­dents may not be aware of the di­verse ca­reer op­por­tu­ni­ties that a back­ground in Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence can of­fer. From agribusi­ness man­age­ment and en­gi­neer­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sult­ing, the field is ripe with po­ten­tial for mean­ing­ful and lu­cra­tive ca­reers,” he added.

Prof Wud­di­vi­ra said sus­pend­ing the Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence dou­ble award op­tion was a symp­tom of the broad­er ne­glect that agri­cul­ture, as a dis­ci­pline, has re­ceived.

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