Project Description

Building Organic Agriculture in Armenia; Improving the knowledge and skills of organic stakeholders through participatory curriculum development and outreach (BOAA)

We are happy to announce that the project Building Organic Agriculture in Armenia (BOAA) is off to an excellent start!

BOAA is a higher-education based project[1] developed in cooperation with the International Center for Agribusiness Research and Education (ICARE) in Yerevan, The Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU), and The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). Through this project it is their intention to be able to support the Armenian organic sector in closing the gap between farmers and science through the education and training of young professionals ready to enter the workforce. As organic is a globally growing sector based on the ethics of Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care[2], it is an attractive opportunity for those entering the workforce offering a dual purpose of business with a social message.  Additionally, through the Austrian BOAA team members’ very short time spent in Armenia, they learned how vital the country’s health and beauty—of its citizens and its land—are to the cultural identity of the many Armenians living both within the country’s boarders and those scattered about the globe. 

Continuing this understanding BOAA is the result of a needs assessment that found a profound lack of organic education, skills and knowledge in Armenia.[3] Therefore BOAA team members designed the project to achieve the following goals:

• Establish an Organic Master Program at ANAU, and
• Build capacity at ANAU and within the broader Armenian organic community