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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification

Tag: training

A Cambodian University Student’s Research Helps Improve Animal Clinic

Posted on by Andra Williams 

Ban Naiheak, BSc in Veterinary Medicine at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA), Cambodia, shows off the E.Coli bacteria she colonized in Microbiology Lab at RUA.

Ban Naiheak, a 22-year-old student at the Royal University of Agriculture, moved from a rural province in Cambodia to live with her aunt in Phnom Penh in order to pursue her education. Ms. Naiheak is majoring in Veterinary Medicine and she has just completed her research for her thesis and is ready to defend. Her research topic is “Antimicrobial Resistance Profiles Found in a Case Study of Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) from Cohabitant Pets and Environment at Animal Clinic in Phnom Penh.”

Ms. Naiheak is considered to be one of the more promising students in her cohort, according to many of her professors, and has been able to continue her studies thanks to a grant from CE SAIN in March 2019, funded by USAID though the Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) at Kansas State University.

“I was not so sure if my thesis research could continue since it needed huge financial support and I would definitely have had to change the topic to be simpler […], but my thesis was made possible because my application for grant thesis support was accepted. I was so happy to hear that,” she stated.

In addition to studying, Ms. Naiheak worked as a part-time administrator at the university. During the first stage of her thesis research, she volunteered at an animal clinic to collect samples from puppies for three months. Seeing that  she was so busy with her schoolwork, the university gave her permission to take a three-month break from work to focus on her research. Ms. Naiheak has said that the past three months were a hard time for her, however, it was a great opportunity to learn new knowledge and gain experience outside of the classroom. She also received great support from her supervisors and assistance with her research through their advice, She was also able to come and work in the microbiology lab as often she needed.

Her thesis has two main objectives: firstly, she wants to research the the presence of E. coli bacterial resistance in puppies and the animal clinic environment. Secondly, she wants to find out what types of existing treatments currently available can effectively treat puppies afflicted with E. coli bacterial infections. She says that the bacteria could be transmitted from the puppies to the environment, and even humans. When humans become exposed to the same kind of resistant bacteria, it came become very hard to treat. “My research is not a big topic that [will help all of] society,” she said, “but it will help the animal clinic to have a deeper understanding of this certain issue and help provide [people with] the research documentation that they can go and read.”

Ban Naiheak performs tests on bacteria in the Microbiology Lab at RUA.

Ms. Naiheak did encounter some challenges when the results of her research did not match to her hypothesis. In once instance during her research, she chose her sample from puppies that had diarrhea and was under three months old. She expected the result to be positive for the E. coli bacteria, but it came back negative. She will need to defend her findings and explain to the thesis committee the reasons  for these differences. She says that knowing the history of the puppies’ background is very important and it helps to understand why the puppies got sick.

Naiheak wishes to pursue her master degree and do in-depth research on E. coli bacteria and how it can effect the environment and humans. At the moment, she is not sure of her eventual career goals, but she would like to find a job where she can share her knowledge and experience with other people.

 “I would like to say thank you very much to CE SAIN and USAID for providing this grant to support undergraduate students on our research theses. Your support [has been] a big contribution to make our thesis research happen. Without your support, my preferred topic for the research thesis would not [have] happened. –Ban Naiheak

-Submitted by Manel Mao, CE SAIN Program Manager

Gender Sensitivity Training in Burkina Faso

Posted on by kmtully
Gender sensitivity training in Burkina Faso
The ADM Institute is a funding partner for the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium, a subaward of the USAID-funded Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) based at Kansas State University.Maria Jones recently joined the USAID-funded Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium (ASMC) team from INGENEAES. The Feed the Future project Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services (INGENAES) is also housed in the College of ACES within the AgReach program at the University of Illinois.

In June, Tim Rendall, ASMC project manager, and Jones traveled to Burkina Faso to meet with the in-country team and work with a team of faculty and students to conduct a gender analysis of the ASMC’s planter technology. In addition, Jones and Rendall trained in-country staff on gender integration, using a participatory training approach developed by INGENAES known as the Introductory Gender in Agricultural Activities training.

Using adult learning principles such as role-playing, small group drawing, and demonstrations, the one-day workshop helped faculty, students, and ASMC partners in Burkina Faso explore complex and deep-rooted practices, including roles and responsibilities of men and women in rural households, and who has “power” in local households and societies. The training also helped participants look at ways in which men and women participate in different agricultural value chains.

The technology assessment toolkit used by Jones in the five-day technology assessment workshop was designed by Cultural Practice LLC within the INGENAES project. While technologies can improve the timing of agricultural tasks and reduce drudgery, technologies are not inherently gender neutral Mechanization projects need to consider that if mechanized tools are introduced, cultural norms might dictate that men might be the ones who own or control their use. Jones explains that conducting a gender analysis acts as a first step to help researchers determine if a technology is working for its intended purpose to benefit both men and women farmers.

Jones and Rendall worked with a team of faculty and students from the ASMC Innovation Hub in Burkina Faso, and consortium members Dr. Tim Harrigan (Michigan State University) and Rob Burdick (Tillers International) to assess the planter technology using the technology assessment toolkit. Through interviews and observations, the team was able to determine that women do influence the technology adoption decision-making process, although they do not control the household’s decision-making regarding technology purchase.

Additionally, the team observed that women who are members of local agricultural producer associations or unions seem to enjoy increased influence over household decision-making in adopting new technologies. Men seemed to trust the information disseminated by the unions , and more readily adopted agricultural technologies promoted by the unions.

Jones said her biggest takeaway from the experience in Burkina Faso was for project leaders and researchers to keep the core purpose in mind when developing and refining technologies. Getting to the purpose requires solutions that are feasible and consider social and economic realities.

Over the last month, the ASMC Innovation Hub in Burkina Faso has been working to implement certain recommendations from the initial technology assessment conducted in June. For example, the hub is looking to test their planter technology with donkeys as draft animal power, as a feasible alternative to oxen, especially since female farmers do not tend to own oxen. The hub is also preparing to conduct a detailed gender study of the planter technology and its impacts on women farmers’ time and labor.

To read more about the technical aspects of the ASMC project, please read the Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) blog post about the project, located here

Mechanization is Advancing Sustainable Intensification in Burkina Faso

Posted on by trendall

The overarching goal of the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Hub in Burkina Faso is to assist the country’s smallholder farmers in improving their quality of life by integrating appropriate technologies into crop and livestock systems that sustain profitability and boost ecosystem resilience by alleviating labor bottlenecks while reducing the drudgery of labor-intensive farm tasks.

Figure 1. Université Polytechnique de Bobo-Dioulasso students and ASMC interns Sayaogo Boureima, Victor Ye, Fatoumata Ganou and Dianda Saidou.

We are near the end of the second year of the SIIL Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium (ASMC) project and are reviewing the initial objectives established in collaboration with the stakeholder group and advisory team to ensure that our activities are in line with project objectives. Stakeholders include the U.S. and Burkina Faso ASMC project teams along with local farmers, extension educators, students, agribusiness representatives, agricultural lenders, farmer organizations, technical service providers and others in the Hauts Bassins region.

The interaction with stakeholders was essential in defining the scope and structure of the work in Burkina Faso, and just as importantly, in illuminating a set of common goals and values shared by Burkinabé farmers. We asked:

  • What is the local vision of small-scale farming systems that integrate all aspects of sustainability?
  • Which aspects of the local farming systems are most important to retain if the overall objective is a sustainable balance of environmental, economic and social issues?
  • What diminishes (physical, biological, cultural, etc.) the sustainability of local farming systems, and what can be done to overcome it?
  • How can mechanization improve local farming systems that balance sustainability and social and gender equity?

The participatory and inclusive interaction with stakeholders provided an essential understanding of field conditions and helped prioritize the needs, challenges, and opportunities for mechanization.  The resulting action plan continues to guide the project. Continue reading “Mechanization is Advancing Sustainable Intensification in Burkina Faso” →

In-Country Sustainable Intensification Framework Trainings to Take Place

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The SIIL team is working with each focus country to establish indicators and measurements to assess how an innovation or technology is achieving sustainable intensification. The SI assessment framework is a flexible tool that can fit each country individually and help each project assess how a given innovation is helping the farming systems move to sustainable intensification.

In-country training

The initial trainings for the SI Assessment framework took place at the annual meeting of SIIL in Manhattan, Kansas with project investigators. A continuation of this training will take place in Cambodia and Senegal with in-country scientist, technicians, and project coordinators. By offering trainings in each focus country we are able to engage with in country partners and specifically operationalize the framework for each project. These trainings support each sub-award towards each of its goals. The goal of the overall SI assessment framework is to provide a common framework that can guide research on sustainable intensification and facilitate cross program learning and assessment.
Since sustainable intensification is inherently interdisciplinary, more than one domain is considered. The five domains of sustainable intensification, each considered and measured within the SI assessment framework, are:

• Social
• Economic
• Human condition
• Environment
• Productivity

Continue reading “In-Country Sustainable Intensification Framework Trainings to Take Place” →