The Sustainable Agriculture MicroMasters program provides you the knowledge to create a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. Its fundamental purpose is to help you meet current societal needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. You will learn that sustainable agriculture is more than a collection of sustainable agriculture methods and practices. It is also a process of negotiation: a push and pull between the sometimes competing interests of an individual farmer, a community, a nation, or geo-political groups as they work to solve complex problems about how to grow crops and livestock. As a practitioner of sustainable agriculture — manager, grower, food processor, distributor, retailer, consumer, waste manager, or policymaker — the Sustainable Agriculture MicroMasters program will equip you to play a role in ensuring a sustainable agricultural system. A systems perspective is essential to understanding sustainability and implies interdisciplinary efforts. You will gain an understanding of the importance of the sustainable agriculture system in its broadest sense, from the individual farm, to the local ecosystem, and to communities affected by crop and livestock production practices, both locally and globally. An emphasis on the system allows a larger and more thorough view of the consequences of crop and livestock practices on both human communities and the environment. A systems approach gives you the tools to explore the interconnections between agriculture and other aspects of our environment. Farmers, laborers, policymakers, researchers, retailers, consumers, and managers have a responsibility to reach toward the goal of sustainable agriculture. This MicroMasters program provides you with the fundamental knowledge so that you can uniquely contribute to strengthen the sustainable agriculture community.
An excellent online course offered by edX: how it works
edX courses consist of weekly learning sequences. Each learning sequence is composed of short videos interspersed with interactive learning exercises, where students can immediately practise the concepts from the videos. The courses often include tutorial videos that are similar to small on-campus discussion groups, an online textbook, and an online discussion forum where students can post and review questions and comments to each other and teaching assistants. Where applicable, online laboratories are incorporated into the course.
edX offers certificates of successful completion and some courses are credit-eligible. Whether or not a college or university offers credit for an online course is within the sole discretion of the school. edX offers a variety of ways to take courses, including verified courses where students have the option to audit the course (no cost) or to work toward an edX Verified Certificate (fees vary by course). edX also offers XSeries Certificates for completion of a bundled set of two to seven verified courses in a single subject (cost varies depending on the courses).
An edX learning programme under Other Experiences
