International Programs

Americas

The following summarizes experience and expertise in the Western Hemisphere at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. For further information, please contact Deanna Behring, director of international programs, by telephone at 863-0249 or via e-mail.

Latin America
Work on pest fruit flies has taken Bruce McPheron (Entomology) to Latin America sixteen times in the past decade. Dr. McPheron has worked collaboratively on Mediterranean fruit fly population structure and identifying species complexes among several important pest species. Three students, two from Brazil and one from Venezuela, have conducted their dissertation research with Dr. McPheron. He has also consulted with government agencies in Argentina and Nicaragua on fruit fly management and research projects, lectured at several universities and government agencies, and offered two courses, one in Venezuela and one in Brazil. Bruce McPheron speaks Spanish.

Mark Guiltinan (Horticulture) works in Brazil and St. Lucia and has contacts in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Trinidad, and a number of other places. Dr. Guiltinan and his colleagues conduct research on cocoa under funding from the American Cocoa Research Institute and the USDA. Dr. Guiltinan is developing biotechnology tools for cocoa improvement.

Argentina
John Comerford is currently working on a project called "Production Practices and Consumer Studies with Grass-fed Beef in the United States and Argentina" funded by USDA-CSREES. The objective of this project is to evaluate grass-fed beef production systems in Argentina for their application to U.S. grass-fed beef production by having a team of U.S. educators and farmers travel to Argentina to evaluate grass-fed beef farming systems and determine factors that can be tested under U.S. conditions.

Belize
Frank Higdon (Ag Economics and Rural Sociology) has conducted research on household-level agricultural strategies using qualitative techniques and a community-wide survey of farm producers. In spring 2004, as part of a resident field research course (R SOC 497A), Dr. Higdon led a group of students on a ten-day study tour of Belize. The study tour enhanced the student's understanding of tropical ecosystems and the challenge of managing the environment in collaboration with Monkey River Town, a coastal settlement in southern Belize. The study tour incorporated ecological and social assessment and collaborated with a group of students from University of Belize to learn a wide range of social and environmental assessment techniques. The Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment (TIDE) and the University of Belize are our local partners in the study tour. Dr. Higdon speaks some Spanish.

Nicole Webster (Ag and Extension Education) is working on a service learning research project in Belize to assess the capacity of students and faculty in the Faculties of Science and Technology and Nursing and Allied Health at the University of Belize. Students from the University of Belize work with students from Penn State to conduct the research.

Canada
Hunter J. Carrick (School of Forest Resources) is working in collaboration with a multi-investigator team including researchers from several Canadian schools and institutions to study the causes of hypoxia in Lake Erie. Dr. Carrick's research has demonstrated a link between seasonal plankton dynamics and the occurrence of hypoxia in the lake. Over the past six years, the research team has made four to six research cruises on the lake per year to collect samples and investigate sediment and water geochemistry, the abundance and distribution of benthic of organisms, and the abundance and distribution of plankton. One of their major findings of the work is that climatic changes can enhance plankton productivity in the lake, and these changes appear to promote hypoxia. Moreover, the occurrence of invasive mussels (zebra and quagga mussels) is associated with an increase in benthic algal production and significant alterations in the species composition of benthic invertebrates in the lake. The project is ongoing and the results will be useful to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Victoria Braithwaite (School of Forest Resources) is an invited member of a working group at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, investigating whether it is possible to reconcile conservation and animal welfare. She has been asked to introduce this topic with respect to aquaculture and fisheries (November 2007). Dr. Braithwaite also has a joint research project on Atlantic salmon migration behavior with Waterloo University.

Caribbean
Nicole Webster (Ag and Extension Education) has conducted research in the Caribbean region and in 2004 in Trinidad on youth development. She has done a research project in Belize on the tourism industry and its effect on the agricultural industry. Due to her work in the region, she has been asked to conduct training and research in various Caribbean locations. Dr. Webster has also led student groups to international locations.

Costa Rica
Gregory Hanson (Ag Economics and Rural Sociology) has led a project that translated the farm financial management software used by extension educators in the United State into Spanish. The FINPACK (FINancial PACKage) software was translated and adapted during a sabbatic year spent at the University of Costa Rica. Spanish FINPACK is now used in the Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperatives, and by many farmers in Costa Rica to improve financial management across the ag sector. Plans are to also translate and adapt his widely used Credit and Financial Analysis Training" course into Spanish in the near future.

With support from the World Bank and Resources for the Future, David Abler (Ag Economics and Rural Sociology) has examined the environmental impacts of trade liberalization and population growth in Costa Rica. David Abler speaks Spanish.

Haiti
William Lamont (Horticulture) worked in Haiti in the late 1990s with a nongovernment organization, Double Harvest. Double Harvest, thanks to support from the Van Wingerton family, runs a 200-acre farm that includes a clinic, an elementary school, and a trade school. During his time in Haiti, Dr. Lamont helped the Van Wingerton brothers on a bean project for their greenhouses.

Honduras
Janelle Larson (Ag Economics and Rural Sociology) has done research on land titling and efficiency among small coffee producers in Honduras, as well as in Peru with David Abler and Stephen Smith. Dr. Larson speaks Spanish.

Jamaica
Shelby Fleischer works on the USAID IPM CRSP, collaborating with scientists at the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) at their site on the University of West Indies campus in Kingston, Jamaica. The project is improving farmworker safety in vegetable amaranth peri-urban agriculture with IPM sampling, biorational pesticides, and environmental modification. Cultural and pheromone tools are being developed in sweet potato. In hot pepper production for the export market, aphid-transmitted viruses and a gall midge that results in quarantines are current concerns of CARDI in this IPM CRSP.

Mexico
The College of Agricultural Sciences has two institutional agreements with Mexico. Our Environmental Resources Research Institute has a letter of intent dating back to 1998 with the Mexican Institute of Water Technology. The college also participates in a University-wide agreement with the University of Monterey. Our work with the Mexican Institute of Water Technology, considered the premier group in watershed issues and the research arm of the National Water Commission, is currently focused on a stormwater management project, but the two sides are exploring additional linkages, including student programs.

In 2004, the College of Agricultural Sciences established a formal relationship with the University of Guanajuato, Mexico, with the objectives of rebuilding extension in the State of Guanajuato. On December 1, 2004, the Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO), in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)/Mexico, awarded a grant under the U.S.-Mexico Training, Internships, Exchanges, and Scholarships (TIES) Initiative to The Pennsylvania State University/Universidad de Guanajuato. The ALO support will allow both universities to train Mexican graduate students in extension and applied research on the application of plasticulture techniques to boost rural incomes and protect the rural environment.

In 2003, the College of Agricultural Sciences signed a letter of interest with the Department of Agroplastics of the Applied Chemistry Research Center in Saltillo, Mexico, to work with them in building their graduate program.

Peru
Dave Abler (Ag Economics and Rural Sociology) is involved with a project funded by the Tinker Foundation on the effects of land titling in Peru on farmers' access to credit, land market transactions, and investments in soil conservation. He is also involved with a project funded by the Ford and Spencer Foundations on the effects of economic and educational policy changes since the 1980s on child school attendance and child labor in Chile, Mexico, and Peru. David Abler speaks Spanish.

Penn State received a grant from the McKnight Foundation in the late 1990s for work with Peruvian universities and the International Potato Institute to examine several ancient Andean tuber crops. The research focused on the economic and social role of these foods in the farm family agricultural and food consumption systems, the market potential of the tubers, characterizing the tubers' genetic makeup, preservation of the genetic diversity, and improving storability of the tubers. The project involved the disciplines of biology, plant pathology, anthropology, and agricultural economics and rural sociology.

Trinidad
Under the Plants Without Borders Initiative, Drs. Mark Guiltinan and Siela Maximova (Horticulture) led a student educational trip to Trinidad. During the trip, the Penn State group built a greenhouse and cacao propagation facilities for a cacao farmer. The group visited the cacao research station in Trinidad and presented lectures on the cacao research at Penn State and different cacao plantations.

Nicole Webster is working with the University of the West Indies and the Ministry of Agriculture, Land, and Marine Resources to assist in the research area of youth development. Dr. Webster has conducted workshops and presentations for youth development personnel in Trinidad and Tobago.