Director-General visits Mississippi State University to deepen collaboration in science, data, and innovation for agrifood systems transformation
Starkville, Mississippi - The power and potential of science, data and innovation were center stage Monday as QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), met with senior executives and researchers at Mississippi State University (MSU).
The FAO delegation met on Monday with Dr Mark Keenum, President of MSU, and teams led by David Shaw, Provost and Executive Vice President, Nicholas Frank Dean of the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Mark Lawrence, Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security Director and lead of the Innovation Lab for Fish and other MSU experts and staff.
The Director-General emphasized the importance of science, technology, innovation, and Big Data for agrifood systems transformation, noting they can contribute to tailoring fit-for-purpose solutions for specific contexts and needs.
The university leadership welcomed the longstanding and fruitful partnership with FAO in key technical areas, noting their FAO-designated Reference Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance and Aquaculture Biosecurity, as well as their collaboration with other US agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Agency for International Development (UAID), with which FAO also engages.
Qu visited the university’s cutting-edge Innovation Lab for Fish, which is also supported by USAID’s Feed the Future. The lab is part of the MSU’s Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security, which manages the MSU’s newly-designated FAO Reference Centre on Antimicrobial Resistance and Aquaculture Biosecurity. The Centre was launched at FAO headquarters in June 2023 with President Keenum and representatives from other Reference Centres in China and India.
MSU also boasts a High Performance Computer Collaboratory that it is expanding to accommodate even more computational power to apply in fields including genomics, biotechnology, and geosystems research. Qu stressed that MSU’s multidisciplinary and high-performance computing research cell and its capabilities can play an important role in supporting global efforts to transform agrifood systems.
The partnership
FAO and MSU have been partners since 2010 and the collaboration has steadily grown. In October 2022, the two institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen innovative use of science, data and technology for the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular focus on planning and monitoring risk strategies for aquaculture biosecurity and antimicrobial resistance.
MSU is providing technical support for an anti-microbial resistance (AMR) event in China and will with FAO other Reference Centres will convene a webinar during the next World AMR Awareness Week (18-24 November 2023).
FAO and MSU are also teaming up on a successful rice-fish diversification project in Nigeria, and to help MSU scale up its extension and advisory services to tap informatics and technologies for sustainable agrifood systems.
Praising the university for its knowledge products, Qu encouraged MSU to continue mobilizing students and researchers to work as interns and fellows with FAO on animal health and global food security issues.
It was also noted that the combined expertise of MSU's high-performance computing capabilities and FAO's access to data can help enhance the development of climate models and land and water information. For example, MSU and FAO have been collaborating since January 2023 to update global land and water datasets for agriculture.