Thirty Years of Excellence in International Agriculture

CORNELL

U N I V E R S I T Y

Thirty Years of Excellence in International Agriculture

1968-1998

It began in 1968 with a bus ride from Ithaca to Kenndy Airport on a frigid January evening. The goal was to catch the red-eye special flight leaving at 1:00 A.M. for Puerto Rico. The students and professors in the group were on their way to study tropical agriculture. Few had met before they got on the bus.

From such an auspicious beginning thirty years ago, the trip has evolved into a two-part six-credit course. The two-week journey to the Latin American tropics remains the core of the course, but now it includes visits to a variety of agricultural enterprises and institutions, both large and small, public and private, and to natural resource management programs and community initiatives.
Since 1968 more than 945 students and almost 100 faculty, staff, administrators, and extension educators have participated in the trip, and they have had unforgettable experiences in a variety of places : Puerto Rico from 1968 to 1975; the Dominican Republic, which was added to the Puerto Rico trip from 1973 to 1975; Mexico from 1976 to 1982; Costa Rica from 1983 to 1990; Honduras from 1991 to 1997; and Ecuador in 1998.
These experiences over the past thirty years have contributed directly to the training and motivation of many of today's leaders in international agriculture. The list of students who have taken the course and trip reads like a who's who in international agriculture.

We would like to thank Dennis Kulis and Cornell Media services for designing and producing the IA 602 brochure. Please also note that there are some small modifications in choice of photos and layout for this web presentation from the published brochure.

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