Browse International Programs Stories - Page 9

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UGA Animal and Dairy Science Department Head Francis L. Fluharty (right) and Dengpan Bu, professor of animal nutrition in the Institute of Animal Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, met to discuss ideas for collaboration and sign an MOU two years ago. The departments hope to expand the relationship to include undergraduate and graduate student exchanges. (file photo) CAES News
International ADS Partnership
An animal and dairy science class at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) is gaining international experience by establishing a virtual collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the Institute of Animal Science (CAAS-IAS) in Beijing, China. This intercultural partnership allows students and faculty to sustain a joint scientific effort while travel is largely suspended due to COVID-19.
Elmer Gray (shown) will serve as assistant project director for the Black Fly Research and Resource Center. Gray helped establish UGA's Black Fly Rearing and Bioassay Laboratory in 1999 with Ray Noblet, a former head of the entomology department, who will serve as scientific advisor to the project. CAES News
Global Resource
The University of Georgia Black Fly Rearing and Bioassay Laboratory has been awarded a contract with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to provide partial support for the world's only black fly colony.
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut recently surveyed partners involved in peanut production in Malawi to gauge their priorities for educational materials and research in the future. (Photo by Jamie Rhoads) CAES News
Malawi partners' survey
The Peanut Innovation Lab includes several projects to improve peanut productivity in Malawi. To get a general idea of the priorities stakeholders have for improved practices, the innovation lab recently conducted a simple online survey with a small group of agriculture professionals in Malawi to rank the activities and messages they find most important to improve farmers’ outcomes.
Ivan Chapu, a graduate student at Makerere University in Uganda, uses handheld sensors to evaluate peanuts growing in the field. Scientists in three countries are using the sensors as part of a Peanut Innovation Lab project to speed up the process of assessing peanut varieties for various traits. The work could help peanut breeders in their work to create varieties resistant to disease and resilient to climate shocks. (Photo provided by Ivan Chapu) CAES News
High-Throughput Phenotyping
Commercially available high-tech sensors can give farmers more information about the overall health of a crop, showing a clearer picture of how widely disease or drought is stressing the plants. Those same sensors can help plant breeders more quickly and objectively to assess the phenotypic characteristics of a particular variety, enabling the breeder to work quicker to develop varieties with resiliency traits.
Participants work through an activity at training held by the Peanut Innovation Lab through Gender-Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation in Kampala, Uganda. The training for students and scientists working with the lab in southern and eastern Africa was conducted March 10-12 by GREAT, a partnership by Makerere and Cornell University to show agricultural researchers the impact gender considerations have on their studies. CAES News
Gender training
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut recently held three days of gender training executed by the GREAT (Gender-Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation) team and Makerere University, the first in a series of intensive workshops to help researchers understand how best to consider gender in their work.
Steve Brown (left), executive director of the Peanut Research Foundation, and Jeff Johnson, a retired Birdsong Peanuts executive who serves on the Peanut Innovation Lab’s External Advisory Panel, discuss project proposals as the lab started a new five-year program in 2018. (Photo by Allison Floyd) CAES News
Peanut school snacks
Because peanut is nutritious, relatively inexpensive and shelf stable, the nut already is the main component in Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food to help children recover from severe malnutrition and in supplementary foods to prevent malnutrition. Numerous studies show cognitive benefits to people who consume nuts; research currently under way through the Peanut Innovation Lab could directly show that eating peanuts can help children succeed in school.
The UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ Ratcliffe Scholars Program allows students to engage in study abroad opportunities like the CAES Food Production, Culture and the Environment May session in Spain. CAES News
Ratcliffe Scholarship
While classrooms offer important skills and opportunities, not all lessons fit within four walls. Real-world experiences can be more valuable to a student's education than hours spent in lecture halls. 
CAES News
Drying tarps for peanuts
When Ghanaian groundnut farmers are given tarps for free, they will use them to dry their crops, one of the proven ways to reduce the risk of aflatoxin-producing mold. But, when they have to buy the tarps -- even when they are given an economic incentive to produce low-aflatoxin nuts -- farmers are reluctant to spend the money. A paper recently published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reported those findings in research led by University of Georgia agricultural economist Nick Magnan under the Feed the Future Peanut & Mycotoxin Innovation Lab.
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences students Chad Cain, Sam Bignault, Joshua Toran and Logan Waldrop pose in front of a cathedral in Malaga, Spain, during the Spain: Food Production, Culture and the Environment study abroad program in 2019. CAES News
Spain Study Abroad
Time abroad looks different for every student. Some are seasoned travelers looking to fuel their sense of adventure. For others, studying abroad is the first chance they’ve had to explore a new country.
Ibrahima Diedhiou of the University of Thies in Senegal talks to Peanut Innovation Lab Director Dave Hoisington. Diedhiou studies how wild shrubs in the arid Sahel region of Western Africa may improve crop yields and remediate degraded soils. Now – with the support of the Peanut Innovation Lab – he’s testing how the shrubs work in Senegalese farmers’ peanut fields. (Photo by Allison Floyd) CAES News
Shrub helpers
Shrubs that grow wild in West Africa could be key in boosting yield and giving farmers assurance that they can make a profitable crop, even in the drought prone, food insecure Sahel region. Through the Feed the Future Peanut Innovation Lab, researchers are exploring how best to use two shrubs species in cultivated peanut fields in Senegal to improve the soil health, tap into moisture far below ground and lower soil temperatures.