Friends of Morocco 40th Anniversary Celebration tour Oct 5-15, 2002

DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTNERSHIP Between the Hassan II Institute of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences (L 'Institut Agronomique et Veterinaire Hassan II in French) in Morocco, and the University of Minnesota (UMN) located in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

This partnership is based on the long-standing relationships that have developed between IA V and UMN over the last 30 years. Close professional as well as institutional relationships have grown out of the Masters and Doctoral training that IA V faculty received during the period 1969-1993 at Minnesota and other U.S. partners universities and that was funded by the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Partners: This partnership brings together two strong, well-established agricultural universities. Both have excellent reputations (within their own countries as well as outside), solid academic and scientific foundations, and a sincere dedication to the crucial roles they are asked to play not only in educating agricultural professionals for their respective countries, but also in conducting relevant applied research and providing outreach services for their citizenry.

The Hassan II Institute of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences (IA V). Institutions of higher education focusing on agriculture and natural resources have developed dramatically in Morocco during the last 30 years. The most prominent of these is the Institut Agronomique et Veterinaire Hassan II (lA V) whose main campus is located in Morocco ' s capital city of Rabat, with a horticulture-oriented campus in Agadir. IA V has evolved since its creation in the late 1960s into an internationally competitive education and research institution. Today it offers an impressive array of undergraduate and graduate degrees (including the Doctorate) in the agricultural, food, and environmental sciences as well as conducts research and outreach programs to serve its country's development. IA V is now widely regarded as one of the premier agricultural universities on the African continent.

IA V is responsible for agricultural higher education in six primary areas: agronomy (broadly defined), veterinary medicine, food science and technology, horticulture and landscape architecture, topography, and agricultural engineering. About 2000 students are enrolled each year in the various training programs, and on average 250 students graduate annually at the MS level. IA V's faculty consists of335 members with more than 200 full professors well recognized for their scientific knowledge and expertise. About two thirds of these professors conducted PhD studies at U.S. universities, most as part of various USAID-funded projects.

The University of Minnesota (UMN). Celebrating its 150 anniversary this year, UMN is today a large comprehensive U.S. land-grant institution of higher education whose mission comprises teaching and research as well as outreach and public service, all with a strong global commitment. Located in America's Upper Midwest, the agricultural and natural resource sectors are both critical to the state's economy, whic~ has led to the development of extensive expertise within the university to address the issues faced by those sectors. Because of its size and scope, the UMN is able to draw on the expertise of faculty from 24 colleges on the Twin Cities campus; three regional campuses; the statewide UMN Extension Service; and the Agricultural Experiment Station with six major Research and Outreach Centers (ROCs) located in key agroecological areas of the state. The College of Agricultural, F ood, and Environmental Sciences (COAFES) is considered one of the top five colleges of agricultural sciences in the U.S. It is organized into 10 departments comprising about 240 faculty, some ofwhom are based at the ROCs and some ofwhom have direct responsibility for extension programming.

UMN has collaborated with I,~ V and several other Moroccan institutions since the late 1960s in a major institution-building effort funded in large part by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that ended in 1993. The centerpiece of this collaboration was the Doctoral training of 130 Moroccan faculty during the 1980s and early 1990s that combined coursework in the USA with research in Morocco. Since then, IA V and UMN faculty have collaborated in an agribusiness development project funded by USAID and a faculty exchange program supported with internal resources.