01/30/2006

Award Recognizes Ohio State’s Commitment to African Agriculture

Writer:

Mauricio Espinoza
espinoza.15@osu.edu
(330) 202-3550

Source:

Richard Pratt, Horticulture and Crop Science
pratt.3@osu.edu
(330) 263-3972

Editor: Photos for this article are available. Contact Ken Chamberlain, (330) 263-3779 or chamberlain.1@osu.edu.

WOOSTER, Ohio -- When Richard Pratt was presented with the 2005 African Crop Science Society (ACCS) Award last December in Entebbe, Uganda, he accepted it not only as a personal recognition but also as a testament to the strong ties that unite Ohio State University and Africa’s agricultural science community.

An associate professor of horticulture and crop science based on the Wooster campus of the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), Pratt was honored for his contributions to scientific development in Africa and the work of ACCS, of which he is a member.

During his almost 20 years at OARDC, Pratt has participated in different research endeavors in various African countries, including work with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM-CRSP) in Uganda; has trained African graduate students at his Wooster lab; and has served on the editorial board of the African Crop Science Journal, helping young scientists improve their research and writing skills.

Like Pratt, many other researchers and administrators with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences have engaged in unique agricultural development activities in various African countries. What started in the mid 1960s with faculty consultancies in Uganda and Nigeria has blossomed over the years into a solid Ohio State presence on the African continent through research projects, training opportunities, study abroad programs, and participation in national-level advisory groups.

Key to this sustained presence, Pratt believes, is the university’s willingness to “go the extra mile” and engage in research and outreach activities “that help Africans solve African problems.”

“The idea here is building up the capabilities of African universities, lifting the quality of their research, and addressing real-life problems,” said Pratt, a corn-breeding expert whose work with several Ugandan graduate students has yielded previously unavailable tools to fight devastating diseases of corn (known as maize in Africa) on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

“To accomplish this, you need to establish both formal and informal networks, a broader academic family, a ‘buddy system’ that allows you to work with the people you know and, in turn, with the people they know. In Uganda, for example, we’ve been developing these relationships both in times of peace and when the bullets were flying. OSU has shown a sustained commitment; we are not just a fair-weather friend.”

The impact of this “buddy system” can be seen everywhere. One instance is the number of Ohio State-trained African scientists who now hold leadership positions in both government and academic research institutions, and who continue to develop further partnerships with their alma mater.

Take for example Denis Kyetere, one of Pratt’s former students, who earned his Ph.D. in 1995. Kyetere, the first to identify a major gene that confers tolerance to the destructive maize streak virus, has led different research projects at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) and is currently its director general.

Motshwari Obopile, who earned his M.S. in entomology at Ohio State in the late 1990s and came back last September to complete his doctoral degree, said the university’s continued assistance in training scientists plus its research and outreach work in IPM -- a crop management approach that combines biological control, cultural practices, and little but more effective use of agrochemicals -- are key to the development of Africa’s agricultural systems, especially for small, disadvantaged farmers.

“Traditionally, African farmers have utilized a mixed cropping system in which crops such as maize, millet and cowpeas are grown on the same plot, thus leading to fewer pest problems,” Obopile said. “Now what we want to do is to increase yields by teaching farmers about improved agronomic practices like crop rotation, scouting for pests, timely application of pesticides to reduce environmental contamination and cost, and improving the fertility of the soil.”

Pratt agrees.

“The Green Revolution model, with its emphasis on increasing inputs to increase outputs, didn’t work in Africa,” he pointed out. “My philosophy is a more balanced strategy, with both offense and defense. IPM is a good model to accomplish this. But unless science is taken into the field and makes an impact in the livelihood of subsistence farmers, there isn’t much contribution.”

Other projects through which Ohio State contributes to farming and community development in Africa include: a collaborative effort to boost the agricultural economy in Tanzania by educating and training those entering private-sector agribusinesses; a research and integrated management program to combat coffee wilt, a damaging disease of this profitable crop in Uganda; the evaluation and development of innovative marketing strategies for sorghum and millet farmers in Tanzania and Zambia; and various IPM-related programs in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

OARDC is the research arm of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

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