More than 200 Mexican university students visited El Batán on 19 September 2008. They came from nine universities–some from as far away as Saltillo, Coahuila, from the Autonomous Agrarian University Antonio Narro, while others traveled from Puebla, Hidalgo, and Querétaro very early on the day of the event.

“The day was designed to present CIMMYT’s research and the global scope of its work to students in plant breeding, molecular biology, and agriculture,” said Petr Kosina, knowledge sharing and capacity building coordinator at CIMMYT. “We want to show students real examples of how CIMMYT and Mexico are contributing to reducing poverty and hunger and impacting on the livelihoods of poor farmers around the world—hopefully this will be motivating for them.”

“I’ve realized the important role CIMMYT play as an international facilitator in response to the need to feed people…” said Judith Ortiz Martínez, a rural development student at the Colegio de Postgraduados. “Up until now, we’ve only had partial information [from our studies] and today after seeing the presentations we had lots of questions but the schedule was very tight. But I think today has been very enriching for us as students.

Oscar Raúl Manilla Villa, a hydroscience student, also from the Colegio de Postgraduados said: “Despite all the research to increase productivity and improve maize and wheat varieties, we still have 800,000 people who are hungry… So there’s more work to be done.”