Cornell has strengthened its presence in Africa by formalizing a research relationship with a leading international agricultural university.

Representatives from Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Faculty of AgriSciences of Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

The five-year MOU is intended to facilitate international academic exchange, enhance scientific relationships and support collaborative research activities.

Ralph Christy, director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD), who signed the MOU on behalf of Cornell, said the agreement builds upon a decade of collaboration between the two universities.

"New York and South Africa are counter-seasonal, meaning our summers are their winters and their summers are our winters. This allows us for a year-round laboratory in which students from both hemispheres can learn," he said.

CIIFAD's assistant director, Edward Mabaya, for example, is a Cornell scholar whose research will benefit from the partnership. As a research associate at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, he studies food marketing and distribution, seed systems, spatial market equilibrium and the role of efficient agricultural markets in Africa's economic development.

In 2010 he became a visiting lecturer at Stellenbosch and is coordinating its Seeds of Development Program, a business development service and networking project for emerging seed companies in East and Southern Africa.

"I have seen how many communalities there are between the two institutions," Mabaya said. "With the MOU, we will use the common areas we have to advance the relationship and to connect more dots on both campuses."

Mohammad Karaan, dean of faculty of AgriSciences at Stellenbosch University, said the MOU not only formalizes but also enhances the existing relationship between two prominent institutions both serving agriculture on the African continent.

"It is a great privilege for Stellenbosch University to collaborate with an institution of such magnitude, stature and substance as Cornell University," he said.

Jenny Nelson is a program coordinator at the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development.