Go Forward

History and organization of the School of Agriculture

The Meiji University School of Agriculture traces its origin to the Meiji Agricultural Vocational School, which was founded in 1946. Ever since its establishment, it has reorganized and expanded in response to the needs of the times and society. In 1949, when the new university education system was inaugurated, it instituted the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agricultural Economics. In 1953, it added the Department of Agricultural Production (renamed the Department of Agricultural Chemistry in 1968). This was followed in 2000 by the addition of the Department of Life Sciences, which increased the number of departments to the current four. In 2008, the Department of Agricultural Economics was renamed the Department of Agri-food and Environmental Policy. The School has built a setup for provision of both general and specialized education fusing humanities and sciences, based on cooperation by faculty in the natural sciences and their counterparts in the humanities.

Taking food, the environment, and life as its key words, the School of Agriculture aspires to the harmonization of nature and human society. It promotes education and research aimed at the development of human resources who have a good understanding of life and are equipped with the fundamental competence and ability to apply and expand on knowledge, to assist resolution of global problems in the spheres of food and the environment. While each preserves its unique character, the four departments have prepared curricula that are organically intertwined. Students consequently can accumulate knowledge not only in their specialized field but also in various others within the School. The School has a full array of excellent facilities for experimenting and training. These may be exemplified by the state-of-the-art research equipment and test farms on the Ikuta Campus and the Meiji University Kurokawa Farm, which is located in the Kurokawa district of the city of Kawasaki and opened in April 2012.

 

Key words of the School of Agriculture

●  Food: People live by eating all sorts of living things. The efficient production of sound and safe crops in various environments, raising of healthy livestock carrying on superior properties, and processing of foodstuffs through fermentation and other techniques are absolute prerequisites for the survival of humankind into the future. It is also of critical importance to support the livelihood of agricultural producers and provide for the smooth distribution of safe foodstuffs.

●  Environment: All creatures live in the context of involvement with the surrounding environment. Water and sunlight are the wellsprings of life, but organisms cannot grow with too much or too little of either. Climate change and natural disasters on a global scale demand new initiatives by humankind. The times call for the development of crops highly resistant to environmental stress, the building of a recycling-oriented society that does not burden the environment, and improvement of the environment and the creation of pleasant space using plants and micro-organisms.

●  Life: We have begun to elucidate life on the molecular level through research in areas such as DNA and protein. The resolution of food and environmental problems requires knowledge of how organisms live, what occurs in their bodies, and how they are involved with the environment and other organisms. It is also vital to acquire knowledge about activities and developments bearing on life and life sciences in regions and the international community. Understanding of life will also contribute to the maintenance of human health and medical care.