Climate change is set to cause major changes across the world! MS FSCC is offering a holistic approach to address the imposing challenges posed by climate change and food security over the countries.

It was a wonderful opportunity for me to participate in the MS FSCC program. During the Summer School hosted by Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2018, I learned a lot about climate change phenomena and its effect to the environment, animals, and food supply. I met kindhearted and humble people who I made friends with easily. We discussed many things with professional experts and we even did research in a palm plantation area. That's very cool!

Also, I was given a chance to attend a one-semester mobility in University of The Philippines Los Baños. I had the best time doing new things, meeting new people, experiencing new culture, and new atmosphere there. I will always keep those memories in my mind and my heart!

Thank you SEARCA, Erasmus+, and UC!

Hello, my name is Ryan Pieter from Indonesia. I'm very grateful to be able to join the MSFCC program in 2018. This program gave me opportunities to learn from many great professors, lectures, activists, and professionals in the food security and climate change field. I also got to experience the farming life in Yogyakarta for 3 weeks together with my friends from Southeast Asia and Europe.

This program rings a bell to me to be more concerned about food availability in our society. It also inspired me to share the knowledge and experience to my friends and colleagues. I hope many people will be more aware about the food security and climate change issues and that they will be willing to invest in technology and science that can help us answer the challenges in food insecurity because of climate change.

Once again, thank you Erasmus+ for this great opportunity.

Love from Indonesia.

I had such an amazing experience during the MS FSCC Summer Course program in 2019. I learned about climate change, food security, sustainability, and resilience of food system, and how to do social assessment. We had a lot of discussion sessions which gave us the chance to share our opinion with people from different countries. We also conducted a social research together in Camarines Sur.

What a great team, ever!

The most unforgettable experience was during the home stay session where we stayed in the farmer's house for 3 days. We visited farms and interviewed the farmers and stakeholders of cacao production there. The farmer taught us how to do cacao tree grafting and planting these in the farm. They are amazing farmers. We also visited a beach in Sagnay and had unlimited santol and rambutan as a bonus.

Thank you to all the committee, SEARCA, Erasmus+, UPLB, and UGM who gave me this opportunity.

The highlight of the Summer School was the field exposure in Camarines Sur (July 19-28, 2019). In addition to expert inputs in UPLB, the first day was also dedicated for listening to local experts from various government agencies to provide profile and vision for the agricultural sector focusing on rice and cacao industry of the province. Preparatory activities such as cross-farm visits, meeting with LGUs, and Focus Group Discussions with key informants were done before the 3-day homestay with the host family. I was in a group of six (6) people which was composed of a Thai (Agricultural Economist), Japanese (Food Science and Chemistry Specialist), Malaysian (Horticulture Specialist), Vietnamese (Agribusiness Management), Filipino (Management Specialist) and me. It was a very rich and memorable experience to do field work with this group because everyone was so cooperative and we were able to finish all the tasks efficiently and effectively. The facilitator assigned to us was from iCrops, UPLB and was a great help for us because he spoke the local dialect. We facilitated FGDs, KIIs, and in-depth interviews together, collected and analyzed soil from farmers and wrote the field report which was basically a case study of the village's farming experiences.  Being able to experience the farmers plight and living conditions first hand is an experience I will treasure for a lifetime.

The research attachment with Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany was the best experience I had so far in my graduate studies. Surviving through my master research and being lucky enough to be selected as one of the scholarship receiver and going abroad to a European country like Germany was the best award of my Master Degree days. The chances I got will be written forever as part of my experience in my career resume. I can now share all my experiences in Germany, anytime through my PhD study in Japan. These were all made possible because of the support given by ERASMUS+ and the SEARCA team members. Thank you everyone.

I would like to say that studying abroad was an opportunity for me to change my mind-set and develop myself to gain better knowledge, life experiences, and interactions with new people coming from different countries.

By taking the MS FSCC mobility program, I can deepen my knowledge, improve the quality of my study and work to contribute to my own country.

The MS FSCC experience had strengthened my drive to strive harder in my field of study as I found out that in order for me to help the farmers even on the advising part, I should broaden my knowledge. I should be familiar with the practices in the different productions of various crops because just focusing on my field of specialization, somehow, encloses me to limited information that in some cases the farmers already know and or not interested about.

Moreover, this program taught me that there is a pillar that can be used to determine the sustainability and resilience of a vulnerable area or anything. This pillar includes the determination of buffer capacity, self-organization and learning adaptations from the social, ecological and economical dimensions. This pillar helps us, the student researcher, to systematically extract the factors that made a particular location resilient and sustainable. And this could be achieved through firsthand experience as well as collaborative secondary data gathering with the stakeholders.

My experience in the MS FSCC summer program was enriching and unforgettable. I made friends that I would have never met and did things I never would have done if it wasn't for this program. I was also able to visit a part of my country that I had not been to before and imbibe a culture I was unfamiliar with. The activities were challenging and I actually got really sick during one of the most important days, but knowing that what we were doing was going to positively impact and aid other peoples' lives was the motivation I used to get better. I made sure to create output that would be useful once I felt better. All the days we spent together, all the food we ate, all the laughs we shared, all the lessons we learned, all the people we talked to, and all the encounters we documented, were the most rewarding fruits of the MS FSCC program for me.

During the MS FSCC program, I learned many things, especially the oil palm production, the importance of integrated oil palm-cattle in agro-ecosystem transition and conservation, gained experience about the livelihood of the farmers and villagers in Malaysia. I also communicated and made friends with people from other countries. The conservation of agro-ecosystem plays a crucial role in improving sustainable agricultural intensification.

Kumusta, I'm Nurul Amri Komarudin from Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB University - Indonesia). I'm proud to be a part of the Master of Science in Food Security and Climate Change (MS FSCC) project funded by the Erasmus+, batch 2019.

The summer course of MS FSCC 2019 was held on July 15-31. The theme of this event was "Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems in Vulnerable Areas". I was given some lecture about that topic and also did social research regarding the assessment of sustainability and resiliency of rice and cacao production in Camarines Sur, Philippines.

I was also allowed to conduct one semester mobility in the 1st semester, AY 2019-2020, at the School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM) University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). I took 5 courses (ENS 211: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Natural Resources and Environmental Management, ENS 275: Contemporary Issues in Environment and Development, ENS 201: Ecosystem Structure and Dynamic, ENS 299: Graduate Seminar and ENS 296: Environmental Impact Assessment Perspective in Social and Natural Sciences).

Thank you for this opportunity SEARCA, ERASMUS+ and UPLB! ❤

#HappyErasmusdays on 15-17 of October 2020 ❤

The MS FSCC program provides opportunities for students to study abroad, and the opportunity to study at other universities in collaboration with the University Consortium. The first activity is the Summer School held at UPM (Universiti Putra Malaysia) which is part of this program. This Summer School was attended by 45 students from 14 universities and 8 countries with activities such as lectures, focus group discussions, hands-on practical work in the field with in-depth learning and experiences. The theme for this activity was Oil Palm-Cattle Integration: A Transition Towards Sustainability in Food Security and Climate Change with five related sub-themes.

The second activity of the MSFSCC program is the Mobility Course at UPLB (University of Philippines Los Baños) in the SESAM (School of Environmental Sciences and Management) department through the track: Policymaker on Natural Resource Management (IPB - UPLB) with one semester of lectures on Climate Change both adaptation and mitigation. Lectures were held from August to the end of December with 13 course credits. The courses taken are compulsory courses provided by SESAM. Apart from attending the UPLB campus, we also participated in general stadiums both organized by SESAM and organized by SEARCA.

I am Justine Repalam and I was part of the MS Food Security and Climate Change in 2018. Here I participated in the SEA mobility at Institut Pertanian Bogor, Indonesia and the EU mobility at the Georg-August Universität Göttingen in Germany in 2019.

It has been almost a year since I arrived back home in Los Baños in the Philippines. Studying abroad has been a profound experience for me – in a sense where in this process I had gained a deeper understanding of myself, my strengths and my weaknesses, my interests, my perspectives in life and work, and even things that I value not only as a student but also as an individual. It has been refreshing and has brought me greater vigor for learning and pursuing newly discovered interests like learning new languages, advocating for sustainable lifestyle and zero waste, or experiencing and exploring different cultures. I have been fortunate enough to be granted everything that I could have never imagined for myself – explored the world, met and became friends with amazing people, experienced different cultures and lifestyles, and allowed me to lead a life in a foreign culture. The new and unfamiliar situations have become important lessons for me and there is no substitute for the learnings I’ve gained by actually living in a different country.

While I am sad that my time abroad is over, it has been very rewarding in so many ways. I would not say that I’ve already left it behind but rather, these pieces of experiences are now a part of me. It will belong to me. I have nothing but gratitude to ERASMUS+ and SEARCA for giving opportunities to students such as myself for this experience of a lifetime.

Filling out the application for my master studies and finding multiple financial support forced me to face head on the realities that I've grown up. Looking back and describing my life, I see all the ways in which I am disadvantaged due to my socioeconomic status. But I think it's important to note that I wasn't fully aware of it while growing up. I knew that my parents couldn't buy me everything, but I also knew that they hardly ever said no to me. I was a very normal child, asking for chicken nuggets, and looking at mom and dad every time I was scared or unsure of something.

As I grew older, I've learned to fight for my own dreams and to be on a constant battle within myself and my own self-esteem. Sometimes, I doubt myself if I am enough, if I am not capable enough, am I doing the right thing if I continue to study? To thrive in a world that looks up at social status and affected by the current economic crisis made me think about giving up on my dream to study abroad and just work 12 hours a day like other people. I am so unsure with my financial status and I also have to support my family because I am the oldest child.

Time flies so fast considering that it has been a year since I had my best experience so far in my life. I was able to join the Summer School organized by MS FSCC and it was my first time studying outside my country and meeting new people around the world. At first, honestly, I only had little confidence to speak with other people, especially because I did not have any chance to practice my English before. I spent around 5 or more days to build my confidence so that I can communicate with my friends and have a good conversation as well as trade jokes with them.

I felt very happy realizing that the whole activity just pushed me to be able to speak more and more with other people even if it is Filipino or the others. I remember the first time I had to push my limit and confidence when we were at the SARFC doing FGD with farmers and my role was to summarize the whole discussion and present it in front of the attendant. I had so much joy and fun while I spent about 3 days and 2 nights in the farmer's house as they were so kind and friendly.

I am honored and privileged to be one of the participants of the 2019 MS FSCC Summer School program because I became part of the growing community working towards achieving sustainability and food security amidst globalization and climate change. Summer School serves as a venue for the student leaders to unleash their talent, skills, and knowledge in addressing the interlocking concerns of the community and the target stakeholders. With this program, I was able to meet diverse people with different personalities from different fields of expertise exhibiting strong minds and disposition in life. On top of that, what I like about the program is that we were able to apply all the theories and principles into practice through our field activities and we were able to give back to the community. This is an opportunity that I am always grateful for and all my experiences here will be forever cherished.

My name is Sokuntheary Reach. I am a student of Master of Science in Sustainable Ecosystem Management at University of Battambang, Cambodia who has been granted an amazing opportunity to go on a student exchange program under the support of Erasmus+ MS Food Security and Climate Change at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria. I found the opportunity on the webpage of MS Food Security and Climate Change. Of course, the first day at a new place was kind of unusual, because you don't recognize anybody, but I rapidly grew used to the university's atmosphere and meeting new friends from other places. I got many amazing new experiences in the cultural center of Europe with nice people and staff and incredible academic environment at BOKU. My dream since childhood is to study and travel abroad and it became true. I would like to say thank you to Erasmus+ MS Food Security and Climate Change project and all those who supported this wonderful experience.

My name is Sun Sreyneang and I am a Master student from University of Battambang, Cambodia. I got the opportunity to attend the Summer School for two weeks and also participate in a one-semester mobility in Universiti Putra Malaysia. The wonderful experiences I had include classroom activity, field trips, teamwork with different nationalities, trying different foods, and visiting unique places. It was amazing to learn about diverse cultures, make new friends, and learn more about sustainable food security and knowledge related to the environment. The opportunity to travel and study abroad has always been a dream of mine since I was young, and it became a reality. It was an amazing opportunity for me and the other students. Thank you to the Erasmus+ program and everyone who made this possible.

All the best wishes for you.

Hi! My name is Meilinda Damayanti. I did my Erasmus+ funded MS FSCC program in Germany at University of Gottingen (Faculty of Forestry) and UPLB Philippines (Environmental Science). I am from Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia.

One word I can use to describe Erasmus+ is something I learned during my experience when I joined the MS FSCC program which is open-minded. It is also one of my dreams to participate in the program and I met a lot of new friends from all over the word (Poland, Romania, Belgium, Spain, and India to name a few). I also learned to speak Deutsch, besides the other academic stuff, and it is also very useful to learn about the European culture.

I am glad to be a part of Erasmus+ and it was a very amazing experience. I learned a lot of course about gender in environment, planning and management in forestry, and environmental impact assessment and risk analysis. I have high interest about environment research and it is very useful and relevant with my academic background in Master of Geography and my thesis. So thank you Erasmus+ and someday I hope I can give more to society. Thank you.

My name is Do Huy Hung, a double degree master student of Kasetsart University in Thailand and Montpellier SupAgro in France. My major is Agricultural and Resource Economics. Thanks to the program, I had an invaluable chance to broaden my knowledge via the platform of Summer School under the theme of "Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems in Vulnerable Areas" in the Philippines and one semester mobility in Europe. Those experiences also gradually nurtured my love for research. Other than for academic purposes, the program was also a good chance for me to experience a multi-cultural environment and make friends with students from all over the world. I hope that the program will continually inspire the next generation of researchers and science-lovers.

Thanks to Erasmus+ and SEARCA which improved my chances and gave new perspectives on sustainable development. Erasmus+ helped me to be more open and tolerant towards other cultures and to not judge by the first impression. It also helped me to explore and understand multiple scientific perspectives.

Nur Nadzirah Mat Sulaiman participated in the student mobility in ASEAN specifically in Kasetsart University, Bangkok from January-June 2018 as well as the MSFSCC Summer School 2019 in the Philippines. She went to Europe (Participating Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (MIC) project for a three-month intensive course in Montpellier SupAgro. She also attended the Agriculture and Language Summer Campus: Intensive professional training about linguistic and professional challenges in rural/agricultural development in the Mediterranean South of France from June-September 2018.

Nur Nadzirah Mat Sulaiman's thesis is on Genetic Diversity of Eggplant Germplasm Evaluated under Open Field and Glasshouse Cropping Conditions.

I am proud to be part of the MS FSCC Program. Without the program, it seems impossible for me to learn a lot of things in such a short time. The issue of food security is familiar but combining it with the issue of climate change is a new thing for me. Moreover, I also had the opportunity to conduct a mini research in Malaysia and the Philippines, make friends from all over the world, and learn about new cultures that I never knew before. The overall activities in the MS FSCC Program are precious memories that are hard to forget.

There is no doubt that my time at the Summer School Master of Science in Food Security and Climate Change was the best summer I have ever had. The 12-day tour in Camarines Sur was well arranged so that we visited the must-learn sites to understand food resilience and sustainability. The summer school program supported by Erasmus+ was substantial and the inputs from awesome speakers were of high quality.

Besides that, the one-night stay with small-scale farmers in a rice agro-food system has become one of the most unforgettable moments in my life. What I cherish most is the new family that I met in Bula, Cam Sur: the family is so considerate; the people surrounding me who were very willing to answer our questions and talk with us; and my perspectives broadened when I looked at the rice food system directly. After I finished the field trip, I had an insightful idea for conducting research about the rice food system correlated with climate change.

In the motivation letter, I wrote that after I finish Summer School, I will conduct research related to my discovery during this event. Actually, the rice agro- food system has inspired me to conduct research on climate change. Thank you for Erasmus+, this experience has really changed my life by granting me more valuable things and lessons that I learned. I wish I could experience the summer school of MSFSCC once again!