Food production has moved to mass scale fueled by technological breakthroughs, yet millions of families still rely on family enterprises for their livelihoods, either producing and selling locally or linking with regional and national markets. There are opportunities to bring breakthroughs at this family scale; examples include family farming, often combining agriculture and small animal husbandry (e.g. poultry or pig production, fisheries, beekeeping, etc.), as well as urban and peri-urban agriculture. Family agriculture also promotes community-based approaches to address scale issues in production, marketing, and natural resource management. Opportunities for livelihoods are also emerging from community forestry that includes non-timber forest products. These activities are opening opportunities for women and other disenfranchised groups.
The University of the World offers degrees in Family Agriculture that build on an essential knowledge base that expands all along the value chain – from production to processing and marketing. It considers diverse economic, social, and cultural contexts, and it is based on solid principles of agroecology applied to local production, collective action and organization to produce and sell, and sound management of natural resources for sustainability.
Building on these central, principle-based curricular components, students have ample freedom and multiple options to design and implement their Learning Plans according with their backgrounds, current activities, and interests. The program offer ample opportunities to learn from visits to demonstration sites managed by University’s partners. This degree focus is mostly oriented towards individuals who are already engaged in family agriculture (generally aiming at Associate’s degrees), or those who are advising and training farmers and farmers’ organizations (mostly aiming at Master’s degrees). There are multiple learning and research opportunities in Family Agriculture that intersect with Home-Centered Health, Local Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Local-to-Global Connectivity.