Projects

Capacity building.

Over the decades, Penn State has welcomed a total of close to 100 young faculty from Ukrainian agriculture universities. Historically, these young teachers and scholars were supported by the U.S. government through the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Faculty Exchange Program.

More recently, and with the decline of USDA support, Penn State launched its own faculty support program called WIRA (Woskob International Research for Agriculture). Since 2007, the endowment annually supports two faculty members from Ukrainian universities that have programs in agriculture to come to Penn State for mentorship from our faculty in research and teaching, with the goal of providing new materials and methodologies for teaching students and supporting research advancements for Ukrainian agricultural and economic growth.

Exchange of expertise.

Each year the endowment also supports key initiatives via exchange of experts. Examples of these initiatives include support for an extension food safety short course, conferences on biofuels, seminars on sustainable forest management and forest conservation, farmer-to-farmer (F2F) exchanges with local Ukrainian partner Bridges, and industry tours for producers of agricultural crops.

Specific projects over the course of the program have included a conifer seed exchange project, promoting the health of honey bees and natural honey production, no-till agriculture, and support for environmental and rural development issues in the forested communities of Chornobyl and the Carpathian mountain region.