A delegation from Sri Lanka’s largest university, the University of Peradeniya, visited the University of Illinois in mid-November as guests of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and the College of Veterinary Medicine.  

The Peradeniya delegation included the deans and five additional faculty from the colleges of agriculture and veterinary medicine. The visit was generously funded by Siva Sivananthan, a University of Illinois alumnus who has a vision to increase food security in Sri Lanka.

“Because the visiting delegation has a goal of increasing soybean and poultry production to improve Sri Lanka’s food security, they met with the ACES-based Soybean Innovation Lab along with many others working on soybeans and poultry at Illinois to ask technical questions and to leverage their expertise,” said Lauren Karplus, assistant director of ACES international programs, who coordinated the visit.

University of Illinois President Emeritus Bob Easter had visited Peradeniya over the summer with a delegation from Veterinary Medicine and helped to host this reciprocal visit by joining the meetings and sharing the vision of Peradeniya with ACES faculty members. In particular, he gave the group an overview of Illinois agriculture that helped frame their understanding of Illinois’ regulatory and agricultural environments.