Activities in Africa
Namibia | Ivory Coast and Ghana | Lake Malawi | Kenya | Mozambique | South Africa | Swaziland | Tanzania | Zambia
The following summarizes experience and expertise in Africa at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. For further information, please contact Thomas Gill, Project Associate in International Programs, by telephone at (814)-865-8309 or via e-mail.
The College has hosted two groups of the Norman E. Borlaug African Women in Science fellowships; one in the Spring and Fall of 2007. Selected for their potential as future leaders of Africa’s agricultural research programs, nine Borlaug Fellows from Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia were matched with PSU faculty in Food Science, Horticulture, Agronomy, Agricultural and Extension Education, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Forest Resources and Nutritional Science. Under the direction of faculty mentors, the women conducted independent research projects, enhanced their knowledge of the science of agriculture, and increased their understanding of new research technologies available to them. After spending approximately six weeks at Penn State, the Borlaug Fellows presented their research results in a Washington, DC seminar hosted by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and USAID. Since returning to their home countries, the Borlaug Fellows are continuing their work on nutrition, food safety, rainwater and greywater usage, GIS, forestry, and extension. Many are maintaining a close contact with their PSU mentors.
The College’s work in Africa involves technology transfer of biotechnology methods for cacao improvement in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Under the direction of Dr. Mark Guiltinan, Director of the American Cocoa Research Institute Program in the Molecular Biology of Cacao, we have stationed a postdoctoral scholar in Ghana to work with local cacao researchers setting up plant biotechnology laboratories. Our work will contribute to the ongoing USAID Sustainable Tree Crops Program. We hope to contribute to cacao improvement via development of fast propagation methods for cacao and plan to widen our transfer efforts to include Nigeria and Cameroon.
Dr. Leland Glenna has also conducted some research in Ghana in collaboration with WARDA (Africa Rice Center), starting in 2008. The focus of his research in Ghana was on the effectiveness of a program to promote rice production among small farmers.
In the late 1990s, Penn State worked to develop a culturally-acceptable, shelf-stable animal-source food for children in Kenya whose traditional diets were virtually devoid of meat, and consequently provided less than adequate amounts of several trace minerals, including iron and zinc. The dried meat and potato product, called a Chiparoo, was very acceptable to the Kenyan children who evaluated it. This nutritious product could be safely processed under conditions existing in rural communities in Kenya using the solar drier that was developed for the nutri-business project. Work continues and an assessment of the feasibility of processing shelf-stable meat-based food products in local Kenyan communities was conducted in July 2009 by Dr. Audrey Maretzki, Professor Emeritus of Food Science and Nutrition and Edward Mills, Associate Professor of Dairy and Animal Science.
Dr. Jim Tumlinson presently has a USDA, ISE grant to study African honey bees in Kenya and other parts of East Africa. This grant was funded for 2 years beginning in 2008, involving an initial trip to Kenya in February 2009, and a follow-up trip planned in early 2010. The African collaborators on this project are scientists at the International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi. Dr. Tumlinson established an MOU in 2009 with ICIPE to cover a broad scope of work that he hopes scientists in the Center for Chemical Ecology as well as others can collaborate on.
Our College also has a 2009 MoU with Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. The agreement was initiated to facilitate a broad, interdisciplinary project to work together to address some of the agricultural and rural development challenges in Kenya. The partnership also involves Children and Youth Empowerment Centre in Kenya. In summer 2009, Penn State (under the leadership of our College) sent a group of 39 students and faculty members as a culmination of two semesters' activities in humanitarian design and social entrepreneurship. There were three projects--the development of a system of Eco-Villages to facilitate the reintegration of former street children into society, a web-based system to improve access to healthcare, and a cell-phone based network to build social capital. Dr. Sjoerd Duiker, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and Dr. Janelle Larson, Department of Agricultural Economics, worked on the eco-village project in Lamuria, central Kenya. The project is built around sustainable practices: energy, water, housing, and agriculture. The intention is for the eco-village to be constructed from locally available resources and be economically self-sustaining, generating employment, income and entrepreneurial opportunities to youth, and a sustainable and attractive alternative to urban life. Prototypes of individual technologies such as rainwater harvesters and biodiesel generators were built at Nyeri, and the prospective future 40-acre site in the semi-arid region of Lamuria was visited. The plan is to design the eco-village over the coming two semesters, and start construction next year summer. The project also envisions scaling up to include other centers in Kenya and build other eco-villages.
Dr. Jay Stauffer, School of Forest Resources, conducts both teaching and research in Malawi. Dr. Stauffer holds an adjunct appointment of Professor at the University of Malawi and has taught ichthyology to help train African students in cataloguing, managing and conserving the unique resources of Lake Malawi. The focus of the research in Malawi is on Schistosomiasis, a debilitating parasitic disease caused by trematodes of the genus Schistosoma, which now occurs in 74 countries and is ranked second to malaria as a cause of human morbidity by a parasitic agent. Schistosomiasis increased in school children (ages 5-15) from 36% in 1981 to over 95% in 1996. Preliminary data demonstrate that the dramatic decrease in snail-eating fishes in the open waters of Lake Malawi from 1978 to 1994 was correlated to the increase in schistosomiasis reported along the shoreline of Lake Malawi. Dr. Stauffer has demonstrated that the absence/decline of snail-eating fishes is correlated with the increase in schistosomiasis-host snails along the lake shore. Furthermore, Dr. Stauffer has begun to train Malawian divers to identify key spawning sites of these fishes; and, convince local chiefs to implement sound fisheries management strategies to increase populations of these important fishes. This biological control of schistosomiasis using native fishes can be expanded to other areas throughout Africa.
Dr. Jill Findeis is working closely with the Socioeconomic Unit of IIAM (Mozambique’s national agricultural research institute) on diffusion networks for the low-P legume and evolution-proof malaria cloths. The project is based at 8 sites at Sussundenga, Angonia, Gurue and Lichinga now. She will be heading over this summer with Dr. Rachel Smith to train IIAM socioeconomic team members in GIS and network analysis. She is also preparing training materials in GIS and network analysis for members of the other projects that are part of the South-Eastern Africa McKnight Community of Practice.
Dr. Mike Jacobson, School of Forest Resources, is currently working on a Ford Foundation funded project in Mozambique and South Africa. The main objective of this project is to assess the factors that promote successful small scale natural product enterprises. This is a 3-year project ending in 2010, and African partners include Stellenbosch University of South Africa and Eduardo Mondlane University of Mozambique.
Low soil fertility is a primary constraint to growth and development of crops throughout the developing world. Dr. Jonathan Lynch, Department of Horticulture, has been collaborating with the National Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique (IIAM) to directly address this through the development of genotypes of common bean with superior yield potential in low phosphorus soils. This was a four-year project (2006-2009) funded by the McKnight Foundation. The project had three components – research, training and infrastructure improvement. Collaborative research focused on 1) developing a bean breeding program in Mozambique; 2) generating a better understanding of how specific traits in P-efficient bean varieties affect crop responses to other environmental factors; 3) understanding how P-efficient bean varieties affect agroecosystem productivity and sustainability, and 4) understanding how P-efficient bean varieties affect the physical and economic well-being of rural communities. Three Mozambique nationals have been trained at the PhD level under this project, and research facilities including laboratories have been constructed at sites in Mozambique as part of the infrastructural improvement initiative.
Since 2008, Dr. Lynch has continued his research work on common bean in Mozambique through collaborating with the Dry-Grain Pulse CRSP (Collaborative Research Support Program) led by Michigan State University. This project has four main objectives: 1) to develop bean genotypes with improved tolerance to drought and low P; 2) to develop integrated crop management systems for stress tolerant bean genotypes; 3) to understand constraints to adoption of new bean technologies, income and nutrition potential, and intra-household effects and impacts, and 4) to increase the capacity, effectiveness and sustainability of agriculture research institutions which serve the bean and cowpea sectors in developing countries.
Dr. Lynch has also recently secured funding for 2009-2011 through the Generation Challenge Program of the CGIAR to expand research into examining the ability of basal root architecture in determining drought tolerance of common bean. This project has three objectives: 1) determine the utility of two specific drought-tolerant root traits under water stress; 2) survey bean germplasm for variation in these traits, to aid breeders in identifying sources and parents, and 3) characterize the genetic control of these traits, and to develop molecular markers. This project is in collaboration with IIAM, as well as with SABRN Malawi (Southern African Bean Research Network) and CIAT.
In November 2008, Duarte Morais and Harry Zinn, PSU faculty in Tourism, Park and Recreation Management, and Audrey Maretzki traveled to Namibia where they were joined by colleagues from the University of Namibia (UNAM) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in conducting a pilot study to assess the impact of community-based conservancies in the Kunene District on attitudes toward wildlife and the perception of quality of life as reflected by Himba, Herero and Damara communities located within conservancy boundaries and similar communities outside the conservancies. This study followed an earlier women’s nutri-business project that PSU conducted in collaboration with the UNAM Northern Campus in which both Maretzki and Jim Dunn were involved. Both of these Namibia projects involved the Marjorie Grant Whiting Center for Humanity, Arts and the Environment which recently established an endowment at PSU to advance the study and application of indigenous knowledge. Involvement of CAS in a PSU/UNAM/WWF collaboration in Namibia contributes to the PSU Parks and People initiative that is currently under development and has led to the drafting of a Letter of Intent with UNAM that was been signed by the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences, Health and Human Development and Education as well as by AESEDA.
The College participates in a Tertiary Education Linkages Program (TELP) with the University of the North in South Africa. During the August of 1999, Dr. Thomas Bruening and Dr. Harry Carey (Agricultural and Extension Education) traveled South Africa to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment. A number of extensive interviews were conducted with professors, instructors, students, and administrators at the University. In addition, field visits were made to several farms to observe some of the outreach projects, including several women gardening projects, cooperative cattle raising, and the school teaching farm. Information was also collected from extension agents, the Minister of Agriculture in the Northern Province, and the administrator of a satellite campus. The College is working with University of Pittsburgh to implement some of the findings of the needs assessment.
Since 2007, Dr. Mike Jacobson has taught one day courses at Stellenbosch University, near Cape Town, for industry on Forest Finance and Economics. He also teaches a graduate course on the same subject. Dr. Jacobson is also an Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch (similar to being an adjunct) and has been on a number of graduate student committees there. He also did a sabbatical there in 2007, working on forest industry issues.
Dr. Jonathan Lynch has recently collaborated with Howard Buffet to develop a farm in Limpopo Province, South Africa, as a research platform for the generation of new maize and bean varieties adapted to the common southern and eastern African constraints of drought and low soil fertility. Project participants also include IIAM, CIAT, Zamorano University of Honduras, and the University of Wisconsin. The project objectives include: 1) the testing and evaluation of maize varieties for tolerance to drought and low soil nitrogen availability; 2) the discovery of parent lines and genetic markers for genes controlling root traits for superior soil stress tolerance in maize; 3) the testing and evaluation of common bean varieties for tolerance to drought, low soil nitrogen availability and low soil phosphorus availability; 4) the testing and evaluation of integrated crop management systems, and 5) the development of regional collaboration networks among agricultural researchers. An initial trip to Limpopo was conducted in April 2009, with agricultural activities to begin in the 2009-2010 season.
In 1981, Penn State University and Tennessee State University were awarded a ten year, $11 million USAID grant to provide assistance in the design and implementation of an economic plan for Swaziland. The program involved providing academic degree programs and short-term training for Swazi participants, long and short-term technical assistance and equipment to support the activities. Dr. Harry Carey, Agriculture and Extensive Education, served two tours as part of the project. Dr. Carey assisted in establishing a functional information section within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, including the planning of a building addition with equipment, building alterations, equipment procurement and setup, and the training of staff. Dr. Carey also initiated a desktop publishing system and provided extensive training to extension field staff and subject matter specialists on communications skills and extension teaching methods. He also consulted/provided training to MOA and USAID personnel in establishing a desktop publishing and print reproduction system in the Botswana MOA, in Gaborone.
One of the lessons learned from a PSU-led nutri-business project in Kenya in the 1990s was that the “scale-up” from village-based women’s group projects to a full-scale cooperative business venture was plagued by issues of communication, trust and transparency. This observation led a multi-disciplinary group of faculty facilitated by the Interinstitutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK), to seek funding from the Social Science Research Institute to conduct an in-depth study of the social and business networks of 26 women agro-entrepreneurs. Each of these women maintained a produce stall in one of the three markets in Moshii, Tanzania. Because cell-phones have become ubiquitous in East Africa since the initial Kenya nutri-business cooperative was developed, the Penn State research team focused their attention on the way women agro-entrepreneurs use cell-phones in carrying out their business activities. The study indicated that respondents frequently used cell-phones in their business activities, but these business relationships were limited to individuals they knew and trusted. An outcome of the Moshii study has been the development of WishVast, a cell-phone-based social networking system that has the potential to reduce barriers to economic sustainability in future nutri-business ventures.
Dr. Michael C. Saunders, Department of Entomology, has been working under a cooperative agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop a knowledge based model for use in identifying the social, political, economic, and biophysical characteristics of African communities in order to characterize their capacity to implement community based natural resource management. In October 2000, Dr. Saunders joined a World Bank delegation in Zambia to participate in the Bank's mid term review of that country's Environmental Support Program. As part of our charge, we spent considerable time in rural and urban communities, observing and evaluating various community environmental management plans, and in presenting our model to District Environmental Facilitators, District Environmental Committees, and representatives of government ministries.
