Training // Powering Agriculture — Sustainable Energy for Food

Challenges but also solutions will be analyzed, concrete technologies will be examined focusing on their utility to promote access to clean energy. Participants will be able to exchange ideas and know-how with an international network of like-minded, fellow students and receive for continuous contribution to the course a personalized certificate issued by the PAEGC initiative and TH Köln. The course will be held in English, it is entirely free of charge, and open to anyone interested in the subject!

Background

Around one third of the energy used worldwide goes into the production and processing of food from field to table. Given the current energy system mix, the agrifood industry sector is however heavily dependent on fossil fuel inputs for production, transport, processing and distribution, and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. With a continuously growing world population the need for food and for energy to produce it is increasing. At the same time millions of farmers and processors in developing countries and emerging economies lack access to clean energy technologies for irrigation, drying, cooling, storage and other processes.

How can these needs be met sustainably?

We have to produce more food with less energy, make energy use more efficient, and introduce and upscale more clean energy technologies.

About the Course

This MOOC will introduce participants to the Energy-Agriculture Nexus and introduces approaches for sustainably providing energy throughout all stages of agricultural value chains. Challenges but also solutions will be analyzed, concrete technologies will be examined focusing on their utility to promote access to clean energy. Participants will further be familiarized with relevant external influences such as market conditions, politics, and financing schemes of “powering agricultural” projects. Learning materials, developed by well-known experts, will be available as texts as well as videos on a week-by-week basis and are accompanied by assignments that will require the application of the newly learned skills.

Course at a Glance

• 1 Feb - 27 Mar 2016
• Free and open for everybody
• 8 weeks of study
• 3-4 hours work load per week
• In English
• Certificates available for active participation

Website

http://poweringag.org/mooc

Registration

https://gc21.giz.de/ibt/var/app/wp385P/2624/index.php/welcome/

Contact

Laura Jakobeit
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
PoweringAg-MOOC@giz.de