Training structure
CIHEAM IAM Montpellier - Partner establishment
Presentation
This course is in response to a request from the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture, and the Faculty of Agronomy at the Lebanese University, to train engineers to meet the new challenges that Lebanon is already facing: scarcity of resources, climate change and market instability marked by fairly strong regional tensions. The program has two key components in terms of skills not currently available in Lebanon: i) agricultural systems modeling, to design systems that are resilient in the face of climatic uncertainties and socio-economic conditions, and ii) the integration of environmental issues into the evaluation of agricultural system performance. This pathway is particularly important for students from the southern Mediterranean (and especially Lebanon), as it is unique in this field (multi-criteria analysis by modeling, territorial agricultural development, environment). The course is designed in particular to respond to the new restructuring of the agricultural sector on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, with the establishment of territorial extension centers, and to better match the profiles of future engineers for the Ministries of Agriculture and local authorities. >> Find out more
Objectives
- Document, present and discuss the socio-economic and climatic issues facing rural agricultural areas in Lebanon. This will enable students to analyze the performance of Lebanese agricultural systems and, above all, to identify the limits and threats facing these systems in an uncertain and changing socio-economic and climatic context.
- Acquire and master conceptual and numerical analytical frameworks to characterize the diversities of agricultural systems in arid zones and more specifically in Lebanon. These analytical and evaluation frameworks are quantitative, multi-criteria and multi-scale (GIS, diagnostics, statistical analysis, bioeconomic modeling, role-playing, etc.), enabling us to design innovative agricultural systems that meet Lebanon's food priorities and are sustainable from a socio-economic and environmental point of view, in consultation with stakeholders in rural areas. This know-how is now in great demand among development agencies, agricultural advisory centers, consultancies and NGOs working in the agricultural sector.
- Understand and discuss the role of agricultural policies/strategies in promoting innovative agricultural systems. A cross-cutting look at the evolution of priorities in past agricultural policies/strategies with current and future food and environmental priorities will be presented and discussed.