Reprinted from FAS News: News and Information
about the Foreign Agricultural Service, Issue 3, June 2007, page 2.
It
was a triumphant moment for Lydia Chabala. Informed that her visa had been
approved just three days before her first visit to the United States,
Chabala entrusted the care of her two small children to her husband and
family in Lusaka, Zambia, and told her colleagues at the University of
Zambia’s Department of Crop and Soil Sciences to hold off on farming out the
map-making until her homecoming. Upon her return, Chabala told them she
would make the maps. She would quicken their research and instruction on
land-use planning. And, she would teach them, her colleagues, to do the
same.
Chabala had been selected as a Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural
Science and Technology Fellow, an international fellowship program initiated
and administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service in partnership with
the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Women in Science program for
Africa. The Borlaug fellowships for Women in Science from Africa are open
this year to female agricultural scientists from Ghana, Kenya, Mali,
Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Niger and Malawi. Scientists, private
sector agribusiness professionals, government officials, researchers and
policymakers apply for collaborative research and training opportunities.
Training venues include U.S. universities, government agencies and
international agricultural research centers. Since 2006 USDA has provided 22
Women in Science fellowships.
Chabala and Ola Bosede, a Borlaug Fellow from Nigeria, studied and
researched at Pennsylvania State University from mid-April through May. Each
fellow worked one-on-one with a mentor who coordinated the training.
Mentors, in turn, visit the fellow’s home institution after completion of
the training to follow-up on how research and training is carried out. At
Penn State, Chabala worked to quickly master a spatial data management,
visualization and analysis software called ArcGIS Server, so that she may
investigate the correlation between industry, land development and pollution
in Zambia. Combining satellite-generated imagery and mapping, Chabala hopes
to bring greater ecological accountability to her country’s agriculture and
mining sectors.
Bosede holds a Ph.D. in food science and works at the Institute of
Agricultural Research and Training in Ibadan, Nigeria. With Penn State
scientists Catherine Cutter and Stephanie Doores, Bosede studied how to
increase shelf life of tofu products by reducing contamination on film
packaging. Soy products such as soy milk and tofu are gaining popularity in
Nigeria as people look for protein in foods less expensive than meat. Rich
in amino acids and isoflavones, tofu is also packed with protein. As a
result, U.S. exports of soybeans to Nigeria and Nigeria’s own soybean
production have both experienced a surge in recent years as many rural
families turn to cottage-industry tofu processing. Bosede, however, raises a
note of caution. “The process of production can be easily contaminated,”
Bosede says of tofu. “So we want to slow the rate of the microbial
contamination and ensure the hygiene factor.”
Due
to lack of clean water and refrigeration in most rural areas, Bosede is
searching for alternatives. She’s hopeful that introducing additives such as
lactic acid—perhaps made from cassava root, a local staple crop—will lower
microbial risks in packaged tofu. In the rural areas, the risk of E-coli
from contaminated water is also a major concern. Bosede’s research at Penn
State exposed her to new laboratory technologies used to test for fecal
coliform levels. The fast, efficient methods would undoubtedly save lives in
Nigeria if widely available. Therefore, with the data produced through her
training and follow-up experiments, Bosede hopes to write a persuasive
proposal seeking grant funds to purchase similar equipment.
Initiated by FAS in March 2004, the Borlaug Fellowship Program focuses on
African, Latin American, Central European and Asian nations. Since 2004,
more than 333 Borlaug Fellows from 45 countries have received short-term
scientific training and research opportunities in the United States through
this prestigious fellowship program.
