Academic origins
The Chapingo Autonomous University, in Mexico, was the first university in Latin America to promote the development of Agricultural Engineering; starting February 22, 1854 as the ENA National School of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. In the 1930s, the Irrigation specialty was created in the Agronomy curriculum, with solid foundations in Agricultural Sciences and Engineering. Currently the school trains Agronomists in 23 specialties, including Irrigation, Agricultural Mechanics, Agricultural Economics, Protected Horticulture, Soils, Agricultural Parasitology, Rural Sociology, Forestry, Agroindustries, etc.; It also has Postgraduate programs in these areas; It is currently the best study house in this area of knowledge in Mexico; having among its students people from each of the 31 states and the Federal District; It is the mother of great institutions such as CIMMYT, the College of Postgraduates and Inifap").
Agronomist's Day in Mexico is celebrated on February 22 in honor of the founding date of the Chapingo Autonomous University.
Agricultural Engineering appeared, as an academic program, with the creation of the first Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts"), in the United States, institutionalized in 1862 through a Government Law. In 1886 the University of Nebraska, offered in its School of Agriculture Agricultural Engineering courses, with studies of soils, drainage, topography, flow measurement, works for irrigation and application of water to crops.
In December 1907, on the occasion of the second meeting of professionals in the Agricultural Engineering Area, gathered at the University of Wisconsin, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, American Society of Agricultural Engineers -ASAE, was formally created.
The University of Iowa in 1910 awarded the first Degree in Agricultural Engineering. In 1917, Cornell University conferred the first PhD degree in Agricultural Engineering.
In 1925, there were 10 institutions in the United States that conferred the degree in Agricultural Engineering. In 1950 this profession had a great boom thanks to the effort and promotion made by the Society of Agricultural Engineers), in order to define and identify these studies as a branch of Engineering. In that year, 40 universities awarded the title of Agricultural Engineer, many of them with postgraduate studies at the Master's and Doctorate level.
There are currently 50 Agricultural Engineering Departments and more than 12,000 professionals in the United States and Canada, and more than 600 undergraduate and graduate degree programs around the world.
In Spain, the Madrid School of Agricultural Engineers was born in 1855 as the Central School of Agriculture. For more than one hundred years it was the only higher training center for agronomic engineering in Spain.[1] Similar Schools were later created in Spain in Valencia,[2] in Córdoba "Córdoba (Spain)") in 1968,[3] and in Lérida in 1972.[4] Later schools were created in Albacete, Navarra and La Laguna (Tenerife).
Agricultural Engineering was established in Latin America in parallel with the modernization of Agriculture, in the 1950s. The first school of Agricultural Engineering was created by the Technical University of Manabí, based in the city of Portoviejo, Ecuador, in 1957; The program was oriented to the areas of irrigation and machinery. In 1958, the International Congress on mechanization, organized by the FAO, was held in Chillán, Chile. Among the conclusions of this event, the contributions that Agricultural Engineering had been making to the development of Agriculture in Latin America stand out. The Institute of Agricultural Engineering in Lima") was created in 1959 as an entity attached to the Ministry of Agriculture. The purpose of the new Institute was to offer the students of the Faculty of Agronomy of the last 2 years, courses in Agricultural Engineering. The graduate received the title of Agricultural Engineer with a specialty in: Phytotechnics, Agricultural Economics, Zootechnics or Agricultural. In 1960 the National School of Agriculture of Peru") became what is today the La Molina National Agrarian University and, the Institute, in the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering. With this new structure, the doors were opened to the creation of a 5-year professional program in Agricultural Engineering which began in 1962 with 73 students, thanks to technical and financial assistance from the United Nations.
Likewise, in 1941 in Honduras, the Pan-American Agricultural School or, as it is commonly known, Zamorano, was created. Since then, the small school has grown to become what it is today a University center that acts at the service of the Americas.
In 1966, the first 32 agricultural engineers graduated and in that same year the La Molina Agrarian University had 432 students enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering.
In other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, the teaching of Agricultural Engineering began with Postgraduate courses in the areas of marketing of agricultural products, tractors and agricultural machines, in 1960, at the Rural University of the State of Minas Gerais"), today the Federal University of Viçosa, programs that were essentially aimed at Agricultural Engineers.
Very soon, Brazilian educational directives found deficiencies in the fields of basic engineering sciences in graduates in Agronomy and little knowledge in Biological and Agricultural sciences in graduates from Engineering Faculties. As a result of that experience, they decided to create in 1969 the Agricultural Engineering program at the undergraduate level, with the universities of Campinas in Sao Paulo), Pelotas in Rio Grande Do Sul and Viçosa being the pioneers in this branch of Engineering in that country.