"Virginia Tech has been involved in food security issues since 1993," said OIRED Director S.K. De Datta. "When food supply and security dwindled and the cost of food staples have increased, the U.S. Agency decided to augment pest management."
The program will be run in West Africa, including Senegal, Mali and Uganda.
"We ... hope to minimize disease problems with tomatoes and plantains," De Datta said. "The corn and tomato crops will be looked at to minimize viruses."
Tech will work with Ohio State University and will also invite University of California-Davis to help. In addition to these two universities, Tech will work with research institutes and universities in West Africa including the Senegal National Research Institute and the Makerere University in Uganda, De Datta said.
Larry Vaughn, a colleague of De Datta and associate director of OIRED, will also be working on this project.
Vaughn, who specializes in entomology and integrated pest management, is tentatively traveling to West Africa in December to work out details with those who are involved.
"In Senegal, we will be working with the National Research Institute for new rice varieties that are being developed and tested by rice institutions," Vaughn said. "These varieties will have better characteristics such as a higher yield and less disease. If farmers can't get the rice seed certified, they can't sell it."
"Another food staple we will be working with is tomatoes," Vaughn said. "Farmers depend on them for much of their income, and we want to expand to Senegal and Mali to raise their yields that could potentially be raised four to 10 times."
Another aspect of the project Tech will help with is gender equity among farmers.
"We want to make sure that women farmers are benefiting from this project," De Datta said. "Gender equity issues are addressed with every project Tech comes across. Women will get equal if not higher benefits than men. This is a very important component that we use in our research and development programs."
Tech received this grant after submitting a request for proposal to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"We had to turn in a proposal including who would be working, priority crops we would be dealing with, national and research institutes we would be working with, the outcome, who would benefit and in what way they would benefit," De Datta said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development approved the proposal and Tech received the grant. This is not the first grant, however, that Tech has received.
Since De Datta became director of OIRED, it's worked with 40 international countries and received more than $100 million.
"Seventeen years ago when I became director of this office, we had to start the program from the ground up," De Datta said. "We didn't have funding to do anything, but now we have gained the reputation as one of the best." You might be interested in...
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