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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification

Category: September 2016

Graduate Student Seeks to Cultivate New Farming Practices in Bangladesh

Aaron Shew (middle) and his research colleagues take a break from their work to enjoy a coconut
Aaron Shew (middle) and his research colleagues take a break from their work to enjoy a coconut

Coastal Bangladesh is sinking. To protect the region and its inhabitants, embankments were built around the most vulnerable delta islands in the 1960s, creating polders. Though the polders have provided protection to the region’s eight million inhabitants, they have created difficulty for the area’s farming families. Graduate student Aaron Shew is working to change that.

According to Shew, the low farm productivity stems from water management issues. The nature of the polders requires water to be managed with sluices. In the dry season, the lack of fresh water in the rivers makes water sources too salty. In the rainy season, flooding wreaks havoc on crops.

“In the dry season, more than 90 percent of the farmland on the polders is fallow,” Shew, an environmental dynamics doctoral student, said. “In the rainy season, rice crops frequently become submerged in water and die before they can be harvested.”

The Distinguished Doctoral Fellow believes these problems could be solved by finding crops better suited to the polders’ unique environmental conditions. Continue reading “Graduate Student Seeks to Cultivate New Farming Practices in Bangladesh”

East African Researchers Attend Spatial Data Workshop Series in Tanzania

Arusha, Tanzania – August, 15-19GSP 074

The Geospatial and Farming Systems Research Consortium (GSFRC) kicked off its workshop series in Arusha, Tanzania with 46 early-career research and development professionals from across East Africa gathering to advance their skills in programming, modeling and mapping of spatial data. The workshop was organized by the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab, the African Soil Information Service and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.

Over 300 people applied to attend the workshop and 46 of East Africa’s up-and-coming researchers were selected to attend; each showing both motivation and applicability of this training to their work. The training was free of charge and lodging and meals were provided. Participants traveled from Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, and Tanzania and had backgrounds ranging from agronomy, plant breeding and soil scientists to hydrology, climatology, wildlife conservation and virology.

This five-day, hands-on workshop on data science for agricultural development covered an introduction to R software and how to use R for data analysis and modeling with an emphasis on spatial data. Continue reading “East African Researchers Attend Spatial Data Workshop Series in Tanzania”