Since 2017 academic and non-academic partners have worked together in the BOAA project to create the first Master's Program of Organic Agriculture in Armenia and the wider Region. Finally, on February 6th Armenian organic stakeholders, officials and the teaching team from the Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU) as well as members from BOKU University celebrated the acceptance of the organic agriculture master program together with the students and an interested audience. The program got accepted by the The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of RA in December 2019.
The head of the ‘’Organic Armenia’’ Association, Ms. Lusine Nalbandyan, the rector of ANAU, Dr. Vardan Urutyan, and Valentin Fiala from BOKU University expressed their appreciation for the program and talked about the importance of the growing organic farming sector for Armenian agriculture and society. Afterwards Hasmik Hovakimyan and Astghik Sahakyan explained the milestones of the BOAA project and the main characteristics and benefits of the organic master program to the audience. In addition, also the new promotion video for the program was presented. Potential future students showed already a huge interest in the new organic master that will start in September 2020.
The days before the celebration were used to organize a final teaching training day and a stakeholder committee meeting. During the training, members of the ANAU teaching team shared their experiences from a variety of exchanges and workshops they participated. In addition, the teaching team assessed the effectiveness of different teaching methods and discussed how they could be implemented in their courses. During the stakeholder committee meeting, the stakeholders evaluated the process of the BOAA project and discussed the future development of the Organic Agriculture Master’s Program.
