Cairo Univ Agric Dean: National Projects Change People’s Minds Positively

Dr. Amr Mostafa the Agriculture faculty dean at Cairo University, said that the college was recently ranked in the QS English rankings 150-200, and in the US News classification.

Dr. Mostafa stressed: “We are proud that we are the only college among its counterparts in Egypt within this classification; it occupies rank 232 in the world.”

In an exclusive interview with "SEE", Mostafa attributed the several reasons for obtaining this rank.

1- Cairo University's great support for the faculty of agriculture and the assisting body for research projects; this has resulted in a significant international publication.

2- The launching of Agriculture Excellence Center project, which launched a year ago, with a grant from USID worth $ 30 million, in cooperation with 4 American universities: Cornell, Bordeaux, Michigan, California Davis. The university inked agreements with these universities under the auspices of Dr. Muhammad Othman Al Khosht, Cairo University President.

Dr. Mostafa explained that the projects and programs inside the college, with the increase in the minimum admission in it, helped a lot in the college progress in the international rankings, as the college minimum for the current year was 90.1%, and the maximum was 97.3% .

[caption id="attachment_106114" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Cairo Univ Agric Dean: National Projects Change People’s Minds Positively[/caption]

He pointed out to the change taking place in the country; there have been national projects for the first time in the history of Egypt under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

“We have a project of 100, 000 greenhouse,” he said.

“So if we calculate that one greenhouse on average needs 3 engineers in different agricultural specializations, we will find that we need a minimum of 300,000 agricultural graduates, the dean added. “This number is much greater than the numbers that graduate annually from agricultural college.”

The state is also establishing a project for one million livestock head, other than the one and a half million acres project, in addition to huge projects in poultry production and giant fish industry, all of which needs graduates of agriculture.

Furthermore, the existence of internationally accredited programs at the Agriculture faculty, Cairo University, with the currently state trends, has, in turn, been reflected in the people's minds change in society.

Regarding change of the curricula to cope with all development, the dean said that the college have continuous development.

“We are an accredited college, our last accreditation was the food processing program from one of the largest institutions in Germany, as it is the only program found at the level of the Agriculture faculties in Egypt in English language.”

[caption id="attachment_106118" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Cairo Univ Agric Dean: The college was recently ranked in the QS English rankings 150-200, and in the US News classification[/caption]

The college works in cooperation with many companies in the food processing sector, all of this reflects the ongoing development within the college.

He said that the college will carry out afforestation in its farm; it will include planting 5,000 mango trees and 5,000 citrus fruits, and 1million olive trees will be planted in Wadi Al-Natrun farm, where it aims to train approximately 2,400 students annually, with a symbolic reward from the company.

On other hand, the dean attributed the reason for choosing the olive tree to be planted with this number to the fact that olive trees are perennial trees, which are highly productive.

“We will benefit from the two productive sides, and olive tree’s age reaches 500 years, so it is an important project.”

The project duration will be 4 years, provided that the company provides training, fertilizers, all the services and raw materials it needs to implement this project successfully, in addition 3 new greenhouse and pumps required to produce 1 million olive trees.