The growing challenge of feeding the world's population while simultaneously reducing environmental pollution suggests the need to actively seek effective solutions on a worldwide scale. Two critical contributions toward solving the aforementioned problem are training of highly-qualified professionals and research to solve key problems.

The significance of this issue is growing with each new achievement in biological, chemical, or social science. Up-to-date technologies such as biotechnology, improved storage, intercontinental shipping, precision agriculture, and agroecological approaches to production lend themselves to further development through global cooperation in education and research. The application of science and technology is essential to solving world food problems. Training our future work force in these areas is a challenge for the 21st Century. Global cooperation can assist in the dissemination of developments in teaching and scientific research activities.
Political and economic changes in the world occurring within the past 10 years have eliminated a large amount of global confrontation among nations. Global cooperation offers a mechanism for tackling the aforementioned problems.

Agricultural universities worldwide are facing numerous challenges including increasingly limited resource allocations, declining enrollments, keeping up with advances in information and other technologies, remaining aware of and responsive to clientele, and outreach programs. Although the scale of the problems and the local conditions vary across and among regions, there are remarkable similarities in the fundamental nature of these challenges. The realization that these are shared challenges, combined with a political and economic climate that lends itself to the lowering of national barriers, presents an environment conducive to global networking and cooperation among universities. However, existing international organizations do not have the mandate to bring together agricultural universities on a global scale to share lessons learned.