The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, through Resolution 317 of 2024, authorized the University of Cauca as an Agricultural Extension Service Provider Entity (EPSEA). This designation aims to promote knowledge management, the exchange of experiences, and the development of individual, collective, and social capacities, as well as to strengthen rural development processes aligned with the National and Institutional Development Plans.

According to Claudia Lucía Parra Arboleda, an official from the Accreditation and Quality Office of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, the goal is also to connect the productive sector, the academic sector, research, and the social appropriation of knowledge, while strengthening agricultural and agro-industrial initiatives in the Department of Cauca and nationwide.

“EPSEA-Unicauca also makes it possible to comprehensively support producers, diagnose, recommend, update, train, transfer, acknowledge ancestral knowledge and practices, and generate new competencies within the framework of science, technology, and innovation,” she added.

The purpose of an Agricultural Extension Service Provider Entity (EPSEA) is to offer the public agricultural extension service, aimed at developing the capacities of agricultural producers and ensuring their access to knowledge and new technologies that contribute to the sustainability of their production.