Featured international programs

Farmers with advisor in wheat field

The Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences meets the fundamental challenges of development and food security through teaching, research and outreach programs.

alliance for science logo

The Alliance for Science seeks to promote access to scientific innovation as a means of enhancing food security, improving environmental sustainability and raising the quality of life globally.

poster showing diverse appearance of varieties of saamaka rice

The Rice Diversity Project is a collaborative effort to explore the genetic basis of variation in rice and its wild ancestors, identifying genes that can enhance the performance of modern, high-yielding cultivars.

More international efforts

Additional collaborations that connect SIPS faculty with the Department of Global Development include:

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement

Equips National Agricultural Research Institutes with the power to define their unique goals and drive advancement in crop improvement to reduce malnutrition, hunger and provide equitable benefits to women and youth.

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI)

An international community of thousands of hunger fighters from hundreds of institutions working together to:

  • reduce the world’s vulnerability to threats to wheat, particularly from disease and climate change;
  • enhance world productivity to withstand global threats to wheat security.
  • facilitate sustainable international partnerships to contain these threats;
  • engage with farmers for a wheat-secure world;
  • train the next generation of hunger fighters.

NextGen Cassava 

Seeks to modernize partner cassava breeding institutions in Africa and use cutting-edge tools for efficient delivery of improved varieties of cassava. The ultimate beneficiaries of this project are the cassava farmers of sub-Saharan Africa, who will receive improved varieties that increase fresh root yields, are more resilient to devastating virus diseases, and exhibit other traits preferred by smallholder farmers.

Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT)

GREAT delivers training to agricultural researchers from sub-Saharan Africa in the theory and practice of gender-responsive research, seeking to increase opportunities for equitable participation and the sharing of benefits from agricultural research and improve the outcomes for smallholder women farmers, entrepreneurs, and farmer organizations across the region.