RE pCEIVE O1-1j0CT 2 4 2M
August/September 2005
, UNIVERSITY OF ; FLORIDA
IFAS
International
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Where UF/IFAS travels the globe!
UF/IFAS International Programs Office of the Vice President for Agriculture & Natural Resources e Gainesville, Florida 32611"
UF/IFAS senior vice president leads major faculty delegation to Caribbean Food Crops Society
annual meeting
n a demonstration of UF/IFAS"
impact and expertise in issues affecting the Caribbean Basin, UF/ IFAS was a major player in the 2005 Caribbean Food Crops Society (CFCS) meeting, July 10-16th. Jimmy Cheek, Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources, led an impressive team of eighteen faculty to the island of Guadaloupe, French West Indies, this year's host nation. The CFCS is one of the oldest agricultural societies in the Caribbean, with membership that includes every Caribbean island, plus Central and South American representatives. UF/ IFAS is strengthening links with CFCS due to the society's importance in the region and the Caribbean's importance to Florida's agricultural and natural resources. Using this linkage, UF/IFAS is developing safeguarding strategies to combat invasive species in the region. UF/IFAS has conducted invasive species workshops and symposia at several CFCS meetings, as a part of the Tropical & Sub-Tropical Agricultural Research (TSTAR) program. Each country gives a report on research priorities and how its research is organized. Tour of local agricultural production practices are a component of each meeting. -.CONTACT: William F. Brown, WFBrown@ifas.ufl.edu
Guadaloupe, French West Indies
Jimmy Cheek helped open
the 2005 Caribbean Food Crop
Society meeting, as one of
five inaugural
speakers.
UFIZFAS delegation consisted of 18 faculty
UF research
training grant
Australia,
spans four Botswana,
Brazil,
continents Mexico, &
Sandra Russo of UF's Inter- Everglades national Studies and Mark Brown, College of Engineering, have obtained a 5-year National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant totaling more than $3 million. IFAS will be one of the players in this grant. The IGERT is on adaptive management, a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices, by learning from the
See Grant, p. 3
INSIDE:
Housefly "birth-control" virus Feeding Egypt through Education New Study Abroad Program African Pesticide School IFAS Graduate Wins Major International Conservation Award New International Programs Director Search
Travel Grants Awarded Upcoming International Highlights
Telephone: 352 392-1965 FAX: 352 392-7127 Website: http:/linternational.ifas.ufl.edu
Visit the e-version for complete stories and even more International Focus news! http://intemational.ifas.ufl.edu/news.htm
Vol. 16, No. 8
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UF/IFAS
investigates "birth-control" virus to control houseflies
T hanks to UF/IFAS faculty
members Verena-Ulrike BlaeskeLietze and Drion Boucias, the common housefly may soon find it difficult to reproduce. Also known as "filth flies," these insects cause massive contamination at dairy and poultry operations and swarm in such large populations, they've sparked lawsuits by homeowners near production facilities. Blaeske-Lietze and Boucias have launched a high-tech quest to rid dairy and poultry producers and their neighbors of exploding housefly populations, to protect human health from the contamination and diseases the flies spread, and to protect the environment by reducing the amount of pesticide used to control houseflies. That quest led Boucias to Seibersdorf, Austria in July 2005, with help from a travel grant from UF/IFAS International Programs. Boucias met with colleagues from the University of Montpellier, located in France, and
Austria
American dairy p with International pesticide costs to poultry operation Atomic Energy proposed UF/IFA
Agency (IAEA) Austria and Fran
for dairy and pou staff at IAEA's will help save mo
Seibersdorf
facility.
Those meetings allowed Boucias to study the effects of an uncharacterized Salivary Gland Hyperplasia1 (SGH) virus in tsetse flies, which acts as a "birth-control agent," rendering both females and males sterile. A similar virus found in Florida's feral housefly populations also acts as a biological birth control agent. The proposal that Boucias and his colleagues are putting together will pair UF/IFAS faculty with researchers in Austria, France, and Kenya. Proposed research will provide fundamental knowledge on the biology and pathology of the virus, as well as its bio-control potential.-:. CONTACT: Drion Boucias, DGBoucias@ifas.ufl.edu
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) from page 1
economic or social assessment of land tenure (rural or urban). Several major challenges arise in the bidding and implementation process. First, the requests often require a broad range of expertise and second, the response time demanded is often very short. Thus it is very difficult for universities to compete as providers of technical and consulting needs. To reduce the impact of those dhallenges, we formed a consortium of universities, with the University of Georgia taking the lead, and developed a provider's proposal. In addition, Collins and Company, a consulting firm employed by NASULGC, pulled together a number of U.S. universities and submitted a provider's proposal. UF/IFAS faculty are also included in that consulting group. By joining these two groups, we have increased the likelihood that our faculty can get involved in consulting, research, training, and other activities as needed.
The cooperation of our faculty members in submitting CVs under very short notice is greatly appreciated. If either of the consortiums is successful in being selected, there will likely be an opportunity for more faculty members to participate.:* Roger Natzke is senior associate dean and director of UF/IFAS International Programs
roducers lose $30 million annually in control common houseflies. National losses are $20 million a year. The S cooperative research partnership with :e offers a potential bio-control method ltry "filth flies." The bio-control project ney and protect the environment.
New study abroad programs in Europe
Greece, Italy, Spain
effrey Brecht, UF/IFAS Research
Foundation Professor with the Horticultural Sciences Department, announced that Memoranda of Understanding have been signed creating study abroad programs in Greece and Italy, under a USDE FIPSE grant. An MOU for a third program in Spain, is underway.
The new study abroad MOUs will provide an internationally based curriculum that increases professional skills of graduate students and advanced undergraduates in postharvest technology of horticultural crops, including fresh-cut produce. Curriculum will cover post-harvest biology, physiology, and pathology of horticultural crops; quality assessment; equipment engineering; logistics and technology of perishable transportation; marketing aspects related to fruits and vegetables; and international legislation.
Eight scholarships are available for travel and subsistence at cooperating universities for three months: the University of Thessaly, Eastern Greece; the University of Foggia in Foggia, Italy, and the University of Cordoba in Cordoba, Spain. oo CONTACT: Jeffrey Brecht JKBrecht@ifas.ufl.edu
2 Focus
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Feeding Egypt through education. I
UF/IFAS helps Egyptian universities meet nation's projected agricultural needs Egypt
Grant, from page 1
outcomes of operational programs. I Students will study some of the world's most important wetlands, which are under intense pressure in Florida, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, and Mexico. Human pressures on wetlands essential to human existence and wildlife will provide outstanding training for Ph.D. research fellows.
Other faculty will participate in the
1 project. The NSF is trying to change the culture of graduate education to produce scientists able to solve comI plex problems. NSF feels today's training methods are too narrowly focused. i" Contact: Sandra Russo, srusso@ufic.ufl.edu
UF/IFAS .
reaches five African
nations with Uganda
pesticide school
P peter Nkedi-Kizza, Soil & Water
Science department, spent six weeks in Uganda teaching the fifth African Network for the Chemical Analysis of Pesticides (ANCAP) summer course for the ANCAP School of Tropical Pesticide Management. ANCAP is a non-governmental, nonpolitical, non-sectarian, and non-profit scientific body devoted to the science of chemical analysis of pesticides, including residue analyses, degradation, and environmental fate.
T he new UF/IFAS dean for the
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Kirby Barrick, traveled to Cairo and Ain Sokhna, Egypt with Shannon Gary Washburn of the Agricultural Education and Communication department, to help Egyptian universities deliver high quality education.
Conducted under a USAID/MUCIA Agricultural Exports and Rural Initiatives (AERI) project, the training responds to the nation's projected agricultural production needs.
Egypt is faced in the near future with feeding a rapidly growing population with limited financial resources to import agricultural commodities. Egypt hopes to expand its standard of living by increasing agricultural yields and efficiency.
The key to doing that effectively is improving the education universities provide to their students and client groups. The three main components of the trip were:
Establishment of external advisory
committees and student internship
programs; a workshop for deans, associate deans, and department
heads for horticulture, agricultural economics, and animal sciences at Cairo, Fayoum, Assiut, Minia, and
South Valley universities;
*Curriculum and teaching development and a workshop for faculty
from Assiut, Fayoum and Cairo
Participating countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The course on sorption of organic chemicals on soils and sediments attracted twenty participants, mainly graduate students, representing every member nation except Ethiopia.
These schools have provided a forum
universities; and
A follow-up workshop with faculty who participated in faculty development workshops at Florida and Ohio
State in spring 2005.
Project partners conducting this
training with UF/IFAS are Illinois (lead partner), Purdue, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Lincoln universities.
This was the fourth four-day faculty development workshop in Egypt conducted under this project. More than sixty Egyptian faculty trained so far have taken on the new role of "teaching experts" for their colleges, improving their status within those colleges. A long-term project goal is a trade partnership between the U.S. and Egypt.-+ See full article on web! CONTACT: Shannon Washburn SGWashburn@ifas.ufl.edu or Kirby Barrick, kbarrick@ufl.edu
International travel grants have been awarded! For a list of recipients, see the on-line newsletter at:
http://international.ifas.ufl.edu/news.htmi
for exchange and sharing of research results within the region and this has helped in the identification of research gaps. The summer schools have helped set research priorities in the region, as well.CONTACT: Peter Nkedi-Kizza kizza@ifas.ufl.edu
See the web for full articles!
August/September 2005 3
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Office of International Programs University of Florida hAS
Office of the Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources P.O. Box 110282 Gainesville, FL 32611-0282 http://internationaLifas.ufl.edu/news.htmI
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From the bottom of the
world to the top of the heap. UF/IFAS graduate wins conservation award Only 8 years after earning his
Ph.D. from UF/IFAS' Wildlife
Conservation and Ecology department, Argentinean wildlife conservationist Andres Novaro has won the Whitley Award, Britain's highest conservation award and one of the most respected environmental conservation awards in the world.
Novaro, one of eight Whitley Award recipients chosen worldwide this year, was honored for his conservation program, which is part of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Patagonian and Southern Andean Steppe Program. The award includes a cash prize of 30,000 to support Novaro's program. Novaro's work is critical in Northwestern Patagonia, home to several extremely rare wildlife species, such as guanacos, a relative of the camel, and
'S
Argentina's
Patagonia
Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, made the presentation to Novaro.
choiques (rheas), flightless birds found only in South America. Habitat deterioration and poaching have reduced guanaco and rhea populations, which are fragmented and low density. The vast majority of arid Patagonia is in private hands, leaving less than 1% effectively protected. Home to Argentina's largest oil field, the region has extensive, abandoned oil exploration roads, which poachers now use. Navaro's successful dialogues with oil companies have closed many such trails. He is negotiating wildlife corridors linking isolated, protected populations that will create a 20,000 square kilometer "mega-landscape" to preserve Patagonia's rare species.
hoiqun Is found only in tills Andres Novaro with a part of ile wortd patagonian fox
Using this project as a model, Novaro hopes to expand this concept throughout Patagonia. To support that effort, he will be eligible for matching funds next year. + CONTACT: Sarah Miller, swmi@wec.ufl.edu
Upcoming Highlights:
To Russia with love,
Extension style!
Searching for bio-control
agents in East Africa
Everglades REC visits
Costa Rica
Visit the web for full versions of all articles! http://international.ifas.ufl.edu/news.html
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