Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, has inked an agreement with The World Food Preservation Center (WFPC) LLC, located at West Virginia in the US, to reduce post harvest losses in developing countries and diminish world hunger.
WFPC is a consortium of twelve “sister” universities across the globe and a research centre – ARO Volcani Center – in Israel.
It aims to provide advanced world-class post-harvest education (MSc and PhD) to students in developing countries.
The Centre recently formed the World Food Preservation Education Foundation – a non-profit arm – to enable students avail scholarship and attend programmes in “sister” universities of WFPC.
TNAU offers 13 undergraduate degree programmes, 33 post graduate degree programmes and 26 doctoral programmes all over Tamil Nadu.
It has 32 research centres for agro-technology development and 14 Farm Science Centres (KVKs) for outreach.
Charles L Wilson, Former USDA scientist in post harvest pathology, and founder-Chairman & CEO of WFPC, noted that this association with the Farm Varsity would help address food crisis in a sustainable way, albeit with other collaborators, considering the rapid population explosion and requirement of more food to feed the growing population.