RECEIVED MAY 1 1 G05
April 2005 Vol. 16, No.4
International
UF/IFAS International Programs Office of the Vice President for Agriculture & Natural Resources Gainesville, Florida 32611
USAID official outlines opportunities
USAID's David Sammons has an important message for UF/IFAS faculty: agriculture is back on the agency's agenda, and universities can play a role in USAID initiatives.
Sammons, senior adviser for University Relations and Agricultural Research Training and Outreach Office for Agriculture, visited UF/IFAS in April to discuss opportunities for fac-
ulty to work with USAID on the international development agenda.
USAID, Sammons said, is trying to re-engage with universities in projects related to agriculture in the broadest sense, including natural resource
science and technology for strengthening agriculture, fostering capacity for innovation, and strengthening training, education outreach and adaptive research.
2. Participation in one of the Collaborative Research Support Programs, or CRSPs. These U.S. university-led opportunities leverage research capacity as well as training
skills in the university
Community. Some existing CRSPs focus on peanuts, soils, beans, cowpeas, sustainable agriculture and natural resources as well as inte-
grated pest management. David Sammons discusses UF/IFAS faculty memopportunities with USAID. bers have been involved
management, aquaculture, forestry, family science and human health.
During a Global IFAS Seminar, Sammons outlined the project areas where UF/IFAS faculty can interact with the agency.
1. The USAID Agriculture Strategy: Linking Producers to Markets. Projects in this area are designed around economic development, linking producers to domestic and export markets. The strategies include expanding trade opportunities and improving the trade capacity of producers, improvement of social and economic conditions, environmental sustainability of agriculture, mobilizing
with projects in several of the CRSPs. Two faculty recently received planning grants for the SANREM CRSP focused on the reduction of soil degradation and forest destruction, as well as global climate change.
3. Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research. USAID contributes about $26 million a year to the 15 CGIAR centers, and agency missions contribute an additional $25 million-plus annually to these centers. USAID supports linkages between
See Opportunities, p. 2
x* UNIVERSITY OF
FLORIDA
IFAS
Telephone: 352 392-1965 FAX: 352 392-7127 Website: http://international.ifas.ufl.edu
April 2005
Vol. 16, No. 4
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Opportunities, from p. 1
U.S. universities and the centers, and currently sets aside a percentage of its core contribution to support this linkage.
4. Agricultural biotechnology. This topic has emerged as an important component of the agency's work with developing countries. The agency is seeking ways to use biotechnology as a tool for enhanced crop production and is also interested in policy-related issues relative to utilization of GMOs and risk associated with their use.
5. Partnerships for Food Industry Development. This program involves four areas fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, poultry, and natural products and focuses on building market linkages and market capacity for producers of these commodities. All PFID's are university-led.
BIFAD, the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development. BIFAD, and its subcommittee, the Strategic Partnership for Agricultural Research and Education, or SPARE, is an advisory body to the agency responsible, in part, for strengthening the agency's relationship with universities. Sandra Russo with UF International Center has been recently appointed to
SPARE.
6. Water Resource Management. Through CRSPs, BIFAD and CGIAR, a global effort is underway to manage, conserve and improve water resources, and USAID has invested substantially in the field.
7. Long-term training. The focus in this revitalized activity is training young scientists from Africa in topical areas based on African priorities. The program is beginning with master of science degrees.
8. Global Horticultural Assessment. This work is focused on SubSaharan Africa, Asia and the Near East, and Latin America, where USAID is supporting regional workshops on global horticulture.
9. Applied biotechnology research. This topic supports economic development by putting biotechnology innovations to work. The initiative involves policy and regulatory issues, risk assessment, and management.
10. Tsunami relief and recovery efforts. USAID, through its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in its offices in affected countries, is supporting relief and recovery efforts from the tsunami.
11. Global Development Alliance.
The initiative involves partnerships with the private sector to further the goals of USAID in specific countries.
12. Unsolicited proposal development. Through this program, universities can promote their ideas for aiding other countries by working directly with the country missions.
In meetings with Sammons, UF/ IFAS International Distance Education Committee members described UF/IFAS efforts in developing master's programs for overseas students at the cost of in-state tuition. The program could be useful to USAID, Sammons said. Distance education could help keep down costs of training while enhancing the ability of residents of some nations to get advanced degrees.
At USAID, Sammons is responsible for providing a bridge between the university community and USAID with special attention to issues and concerns that inform the partnership.
Contact
SLisette Staai, lms@ifas.ufl.edu J
Extension director visits India
eminole County Extension
Director Barbara Hughes visited India to observe National Immunization Day as part of a Rotary-sponsored trip.
Hughes, president of the Longwood Rotary, joined 74 other Rotarians in observing how India immunizes against polio and helps residents with other health issues. The trip was Feb. 1 through Feb. 24. Half the expenses were paid by Longwood Rotary Club.
The Rotarians traveled through the northern countryside to Japur and Varanasi, where they met with India people and observed the efforts of Rotary International in eradicating polio. More than 200,000 children were vaccinated as part of the program.
Contact
[Barbara Hughes,
bhughes @co.seminole.fl.us
Focus
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UF, NASA, Russia join in videoconference
UF/IFAS shared its space-related re- a Fulbright Scholarship. Kratasyuk search with the Kennedy Space Center and her sponsoring UF/IFAS faculty and Krasnoyarsk State University member, Ray Bucklin, joined hortithrough a videoconfer- cultural science reence that brought lead- searcher Anna-Lisa
ing scientists from the Paul in discussing
three institutions to- s' UF/IFAS involvegether in a virtual con- ment in space-relatference room. ed research into
The event April 12, 2 food production,
Space Day, was an an- Anna-Lisa Paul, Valentina Krata- low pressure enginiversary of the first syuk and Ray Bucklin discuss re- neering, and low space flight in 1961 by search at a videoconference. pressure plant biolo-
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
More than 40 years later, results from research in agriculture and biological systems have been integrated into space travel. Researchers from UF/IFAS, Krasnoyarsk and the Kennedy Space Center discussed their research and expressed the need for further cooperation.
UF/IFAS has longstanding collaborations with the Kennedy Space Center. UF/IFAS and Krasnoyarsk State University are linked through the visit of Valentina Kratasyuk to UF/IFAS on
NASA relies on UF/IFAS for research in these fields. The Krasnoyarsk State University is one of Russia's centers of space research.
The videoconference is part of an educational proposal to increase the exchange of people and information among the Kennedy Space Center, UF/IFAS and Krasnoyarsk State University.
Contact
( Ray Bucklin, bucklin@ufl.edu
Grant supports cover crop research
In South America, efforts to improve cacao production have been thwarted by degradation of soils and loss of forests.
UF/IFAS plant nutritionist Yuncong Li in the Tropical Research and Education Center, Homestead, has been awarded a planning grant to work in Brazil and Peru to develop cover crop technology for use in cocoa farming.
Yuncong Li will collaborate with
other researchers in the project "Cover Crops in Natural Resources Improvement and Tree Crops Sustainability under Tropical Agro-forestry Systems in South America."
The project is funded by SANREM CRSP, a USAID program focused on sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. April2005
Cocoa is one of the major highvalue tree crops in the tropics. Improvement in productivity could help low-income farmers in the region. Erosion has resulted in a loss of soil and nutrients. Legume crops could improve soil fertility and productivity, reduce erosion, increase carbon sequestration, improve water quality, and reduce pests and diseases.
An evaluation of the effects of leguminous cover crops on soil fertility and cocoa production in wide-spaced cocoa plantations in regions of South America is essential to developing a plant to improve soil productivity.
Contact
Yuncong Li, Yunli@ufl.edu
Thai student to study at IFAS
UF/IFAS and Chiang Mai University, Thailand, could enhance their cooperation, with the arrival this summer of another Thai graduate student and possible collaborative research on biogas generation.
Chuckree Senthong, director of the Biogas Technology Center at Chiang Mai University, visited UF/IFAS in April to prepare for the arrival of a graduate student and to explore collaborative opportunities under a cooperative agreement. Chiang Mai University and UF/IFAS have collaborated in graduate education under the Thai Royal Golden Jubilee Program, which supports Ph.D. assistantships, research, and travel abroad.
UF/IFAS researcher Keith Ingram is a co-adviser to three of these stu-
dents.
Contact
Keith ngram, ktingram@ifas.ufl.edu
Brathwaite, featured speaker
Chelston Brathwaite, director general of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on
Agriculture, or IICA, discussed agriculture
and rural life as speaker
March 30 in the 2005
York Distinguished Brathwaite Lecturer Series.
Brathwaite gave his speech "Agriculture and Rural Life in the Americas in the 21st Century" at the Reitz Union. A native of Barbados, Brathwaite joined IICA in 1981 as a regional plant protection specialist for the Caribbean region.
Carlton Davis, UF/IFAS distinguished service professor in food and resource economics, hosted Brathwaite's visit.
Contact
(Carlton Davis
Davis@ifas.ufl.edu
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Office of International Programs University of Florida Office of the Vice President for Agriculture
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Technique for fruit fly control introduced in Caribbean
The West Indian fruit fly, a pest I that once devastated Florida fruit, has become a significant pest in St. Kitts and Nevis. The fruit fly's destruction of
tropical fruits
such as guava
and mango is
particularly
significant as
these countries
seek to develop their fruit export Liburd markets.
Oscar Liburd, a UF/IFAS fruit
integrated pest management specialist, is introducing and evaluating a control strategy developed at the Fruit and Vegetable IPM laboratory in the entomology and nematology. The technique involves a low-risk insecticide-treated sphere that provides a safer way to control fruit flies without using conventional
broad-spectrum toxic insecticides.
Fruit flies are visually attracted to these fruit-mimic spheres for feeding. When the flies feed on the sucrose surface of the sphere they ingest a low-risk biological insecticide that prevents them from reproducing.
Liburd will travel to St. Kitts and Nevis in May to monitor on-going
experiments.
A USDA-Pest Management
Alternative grant funds the project.
The West Indian fruit fly was discovered in Florida in 1930 and eradicated.
Contact
Oscar Liburd, oeliburd@ifas.ufl.edu)
UF/IFAS-CIAT distance education gets grant
A proposal to link UF/IFAS and
CIAT through a distance learning class in participatory approaches to agriculture and natural resources has gained support through an Internationalizing the Curriculum award.
The award, $3,000 from the UF International Center, will support agricultural education and communication researcher Nick Place's work in developing and implementing the course Managing Innovation; a Collaborative Course between the University of
Florida and CIAT in Colombia.
The course will create linkages between UF students and other countries. The partnering instructor, Jacqueline A. Ashby, director of Rural Innovation Institute at CIAT the International Center for Tropical Agriculture is recognized as an expert on this topic.
Contact
Nick Place, nplace@ufl.edu
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