UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State's recent Ag Progress Days took on an international flavor as the College of Agricultural Sciences joined forces with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) and former state agriculture secretary Sam Hayes to host a large delegation from Mexico in a significant advance of Pennsylvania's international-agriculture initiative.

Through the long-term efforts of Hayes and PDA, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has established a five-year agreement with the Universidad de Guanajuato in Guanajuato, Mexico, to develop collaborative cooperative extension, research and teaching opportunities. Guanajuato, a state just north of Mexico City in Mexico's agriculture belt, is an important water resource area for the country and is also politically important as the home state of Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.

"The Department of Agriculture worked closely with us to host this delegation in a partnership that began with previous secretary Sam Hayes and has been continued by Secretary Dennis Wolff," says Robert Steele, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. "PDA and Penn State continue to keep very close communication on our linkages with Guanajuato and are continuing the relationship that brings together our broad agricultural interests."

Deanna Behring, director of international programs for the college, points out that, climates aside, Pennsylvania and Guanajuato have several important aspects in common.

"They both are important agricultural states with an abundance of small farms," she says. "Through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a lot of the small farmers in Mexico that used to produce corn can't compete with the large U.S. producers. So they're having to shift into high-value fruit and vegetable crops. It's a common economic dislocation of NAFTA on small farmers in Canada, the United States and Mexico, and small farmers in the three nations need the tools to produce those high-value crops in an economically and environmentally friendly way."

Behring cites plastic high-tunnel technology, agribusiness education and small-farm agricultural financing as possible areas of interest. Penn State also will partner with the University of Guanajuato's Institute for Agricultural Sciences to re-establish a cooperative extension capacity in Mexico.

"With financial support from Guanajuato's Ministry of Agriculture and other external funding sources, Penn State will assist in the rebuilding through faculty exchanges and graduate student training in applied research and extension techniques training," Behring says. Joint conferences, seminars and faculty-staff exchanges for research and extension also are being planned.

The seeds of the partnership were planted when Hayes launched an aggressive international component to the Pennsylvania Farm Show that emphasized international relations for the development of markets for Pennsylvania agriculture. Representatives of more than 70 countries came to Pennsylvania to participate in the largest international agriculture gathering of its kind in America. PDA continued the initiative under Wolff. Hayes, who began serving on Penn State's Board of Trustees in June 1997 as secretary of agriculture, now has been elected to the board as an agricultural societies representative.

"I'm very pleased that there is now a formal association between Penn State and the University of Guanajuato, and I'm very excited about the association now coming to fruition," Hayes says. "As secretary of agriculture, I worked hard to reach beyond the borders of Pennsylvania to promote our agricultural products. Pennsylvania agriculture has products for the planet. It is important to find new and expanded markets for Pennsylvania agriculture from the standpoint of economic development.

"And I believe very strongly that Penn State is a critical partner in Pennsylvania's economic development," he says. "This is particularly true with regard to our College of Agricultural Sciences. For sure, it is important for our students to have both a domestic and international perspective. And it is important to help keep Pennsylvania agriculture the leading economic sector. Penn State is helping to do that at home and around the world.

"Guanajuato is a very progressive state in Mexico. It is an agricultural state, it's very global and has one of the oldest public universities in Mexican higher education to include a school of agriculture. All of the ingredients are present for a tremendous connection between the University of Guanajuato and Penn State."

Behring says the partnership ties into the college's initiative to help Penn State students to see agriculture in the Latin American context, as more Hispanic farmers and workers arrive in the United States and particularly in rural areas.

"We're very interested in this relationship as a way for students, faculty and staff to have a better understanding of the agricultural linkages between the United States and Mexico, especially given the backdrop of NAFTA and how that has changed the ways we do agriculture," she says.

"We want our students and faculty equipped to understand the realities of what our agricultural policy has meant in both countries and in Canada. In terms of our immigrant population and understanding the backgrounds of people coming into the United States and Pennsylvania, it makes sense to have close relationships."

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EDITORS: Contact Deanna Behring at 814-863-0249, or by e-mail at dmb37@psu.edu.

Writer/Editor: Gary Abdullah Office 814-863-2708 FAX 814-863-9877