Faculty of Tropical AgriScience

About Faculty

The Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences (FTA), the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU) is a unique institution in our country with over fifty years of tradition in tropical agriculture, rural development and the sustainable management of natural resources in the tropics.

The mission of the Faculty:

The mission of the faculty is the higher education of foreign and Czech students in the fields of tropical agriculture, rural development and the sustainable management of natural and energy resources in the tropics. An integral part of our mission is Research and Development in the field of tropical life sciences and the application of R&D results to the specific conditions of tropical and/or developing countries.

The vision of the Faculty:

To be an excellent and very specific institution in the Czech Republic orientated towards the transfer of the latest knowledge and technology between the Czech Republic, the EU and tropical regions respecting the traditional values of the local communities of the developing world as well as their level of socio-economic and technological development.

The Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences offers studies in Bachelors', Masters' and doctoral study programs. Study in Masters' and doctoral programs is entirely in English. A significant number of our students come from abroad. During their studies we support student internships at partner universities in the EU. In the case of Masters' and post-graduate students, we support practical training and research activities related to their diploma and/or doctoral thesis in the tropical regions. Among the most important topics of our interest in the tropics are sustainable agriculture, the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, rural development, food processing and food security, appropriate technologies based on renewable sources of energy, and economics and rural sociology in the developing countries. Our graduates are usually employed in the private sector, in national or international governmental and/or non-governmental institutions that generally deal with issues relating to developing countries, trade, education and technology transfer as well as scientific and research activities in the tropics.

History of the Faculty

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences (FTA), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU) in our country is an unique institution, with over fifty years in education and research focused on agriculture, rural development and sustainable management of natural resources in the tropics and developing countries. The history of the faculty goes back to the sixties of the last century, when the "Department of World Agriculture and Forestry" was established at the Faculty of Forestry, University of Agriculture in Prague (UAP). The Department of World Agriculture and Forestry was founded 21 September 1961 by the Ministry of Education, legal act No. 29 403/61-III-2. The founder of the department was Associate Professor Ferdinand Stočes, who was later in 1964 nominated as a dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Ghana in Accra. Afterwards he worked in a number of African countries as an expert and finished his career as an expert of IFAD (Rome). Retired he became a famous translator of Chinese poetry into various European languages. The Department of World Agriculture and forestry grows rapidly immediately after it’s founding. The number of students grew rapidly and after a few years reached the first hundred.

In June 26, 1967 the department was transformed to the Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (ITSA), which was incorporated under the administration of the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Agriculture in Prague. During this time a wide range of experts and researchers with experience from developing countries have worked at ITSA, which was unique situation in whole country. In 1991 ITSA becomes and independent institution under the organizational structure of the University of Agriculture in Prague. At that time ITSA became a training center for doctoral students in the study program "Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture". In relation to Czech Republic's entry into the OECD the funds allocated from the government budget for Official Development Aid program grew up in the second half of 90s. At the time ITSA becomes a leading implementer of the first projects of the International Development Cooperation of the Czech Republic. In 2003 the name of ITSA was simplified to the Institute of tropics and subtropics (ITS). In 2005, there was a growing number of students and the newly accredited programs in bachelor, master and doctoral degrees with emphases on teaching in English were offered to the students.

An important milestone in the history of the ITS was its transformation to the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences which was happened in January 1, 2013. Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences was found as the sixth faculty of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague.The Faculty has four departments and about 600 students from which one third are foreign students. The faculty actualy offers study in two bachelor, six master's and three doctoral programs all (except one bachelor) taught in English. Faculty is very active in research activities and projects within the framework of international development cooperation. FTA projects are implemented in a number of developing countries, eg. In Angola, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Mongolia, Moldova, Peru, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and others. The faculty have a scholarship programs such as Erasmus Mundus and the Erasmus + which are funded by the European Commission. Those and other scholar ship programs increase the possibility of providing scholarships for FTA students to realize their research projects and thesis in various regions of the developing world.