Low agricultural productivity continues to be a key factor in unsustainable production systems, despite decades of research on soil conservation, breeding and other sustainable agricultural practices. The challenge facing University training, researchers and policy analysts is to understand the processes causing low agricultural productivity and how to design mechanisms or a combination of technologies and practices that will provide farmers in developing countries with the economic incentives needed to adopt more sustainable land use and management practices. Today, tropical agriculture means talking about food insecurity and hunger driven by land degradation, climate change and population pressure on land. This calls for sustainable land and water resources management to avert the negative trend in the tropics. Tens of millions of lives can be saved from hunger. Practical scientific solutions exist. Agriculture based on area expansion is always detrimental and cannot be designated sustainable unless the forgone ecosystem services are accounted for somehow. Sustainable agricultural development remains an elusive goal and incompletely understood concept by the current generation of agricultural scientists, particularly in many of the world's poorest regions where adoption is low. Many practising African agricultural scientists today have been trained in a single discipline approach such as soil science, crop science, animal science or food science and therefore lack an Interdisciplinary/ multi-disciplinary approach to address the problem of low agricultural, food insecurity and sustainable development. There is a perception that everything is fine when agriculture is sustainable, even for generations to come. However, that is a simplistic idea because agriculture competes with other land uses in terms of space and ecosystem services. Sustainable agriculture for ten (10) million people is not the same as sustainable agriculture for forty-five (45) million people, making it a difficult concept. A Doctor of Philosophy graduate program in Global Change and Sustainable Agriculture (GLOSA) seeks to unravel the always incomplete concept of sustainable agriculture through generating a critical mass of high-quality, world-class scientists that have practical intellectual and leadership capacity to offer solutions to the challenges of low agricultural productivity (including people, plants, animals, soil, water, and other resources), environmental health and poverty in the developing world. The program duration is four (4) years, comprising eight (8) semesters devoted to major research work leading to a thesis. The existing human resources in natural and social sciences and facilities provide effective teaching, research, supervision, and mentorship to the PhD candidates. The program's philosophy stands on the concept that depth within a specialty and interdisciplinary breadth are critical to shaping the minds of future generations of scientific leaders. Therefore, the program's emphasis is to develop independent thinkers by fostering creativity and channelling curiosity through scientific training. Students taking the PhD by Research option will be offered additional support opportunities to develop specific professional skills throughout their tenure in the graduate school through discipline-specific courses and foundational cross-cutting courses. This program will also include interdisciplinary interactions among students supplemented by seminars and other activities (retreats and symposia). Students gain knowledge and experience in diverse discipline areas and holistic approaches necessary to understand and develop sustainable agriculture to support rural development, alleviate poverty and reach food security, especially in the developing world. The programme focus is aligned with vision 2040, NDPIII and The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), number 1 and 2. Vision 2040 stresses Science, Technology, Engineering and Innovation (STEI) and industrialization. The NDPIII has its vision as “A Transformed Ugandan Society from a Peasant to a Modern and Prosperous Country within 30 years”. SDGs number 1 and 2, have everything to do with agriculture: poverty and hunger have to be halved by 2030. The program is built under a multi-disciplinary research in five major systems: land, water, agriculture, climate and human dimension (society and economic development). The graduate program focuses on investigating the internal operational challenges of these systems and the dynamics of their interaction at multiple scales to produce food. Solutions are proposed for their sustainable deployment, focusing on the conservation of; soil resources, biodiversity, and water, in the frame of combating land degradation and climate change. Experiments, participatory research, statistics and mathematical models are the primary investigative tool in our teaching and research to bridge natural and social sciences. The training also prepares students to be hardworking, dedicated and self-reliant individuals with the ability to work with diverse groups of people. In addition, the program cultivates written and verbal communication skills, which enables them to be self-motivated and fit into all walks of life.  The program has in-built strategic and long-term productive collaborations beyond research contacts through international conferences, professional workshops and seminars aimed to establish deep professional ties, trust and shared benefits that will work to bridge the sharp cultural divide between academia and field practices.