The International Agricultural Development (IAD) M.S. degree program, hosted in the Plant Sciences Department, prepares students for careers in global agricultural and rural development. This is an interdisciplinary program designed to provide students with knowledge and skills that will enable them to implement, facilitate, and manage programs that enhance agricultural development, resource management, and rural life. Coursework and research are especially, but not exclusively, focused on issues facing developing countries and less-industrialized regions. 

Students are prepared to realize biological and technological improvements in agricultural and natural systems to facilitate social innovation. Training in International Agricultural Development includes both breadth and depth components. Breadth components, required of all M.S. students, aim to establish an understanding of the issues in international development as they relate to agriculture and the environment. These include the history and philosophy of development, leadership and management techniques, fundamentals of farming systems, and agricultural economics.

Practical and on-site experience with development issues is encouraged and facilitated by the group’s affiliated faculty, who possess a wide range of experience in international development and agriculture, and program partners such as the Blum Center for Developing Economies, Horticulture Innovation Lab, D-Lab, Agricultural Sustainability Institute, Student Farm, Russell Ranch, the International Programs Office, UC Cooperative Extension, Research and Innovation Fellowship for Agriculture (RIFA), and others.

Students are assigned a faculty advisor based on their specialization interest areas. Advisors serve as academic mentors to guide students in structuring and implementing their course plans. Students who choose to write a thesis must also identify a faculty member to serve as their major professor (who is the student’s mentor during thesis research).