Grad students head abroad to work with farmers

You’ve probably heard it millions of times in your lifetime, but it bears repeating: Not everyone has enough, good food to eat.

To that end, the Horticulture Collaborative Research Support Program at UC Davis builds global partnerships for fruit and vegetable research to improve livelihoods in developing countries.

Starting in September, those partnerships will include 14 graduate students from UC Davis, Cornell University, North Carolina State University and University of Hawaii at Manoa who will travel to work with smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Through Horticulture CRSP’s Trellis Fund, these students have been matched with organizations in Nepal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Honduras and Nicaragua to provide their agricultural expertise in assisting the organizations' projects with smallholder farmers.

Besides supporting local farmers in developing countries, the projects will also potentially infect students with an interest in international agricultural issues.

“With the Trellis Fund, our goal is to engage young people in an international experience — a chance to partner with a small organization working with real people with real needs and apply what they know about science,” said Beth Mitcham, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Plant Sciences Department at UC Davis and director of Horticulture CRSP. “For a small investment, we’re creating lasting relationships and perhaps changing the career path of a young person.”

Read our full press release for more details, or find out who is going where on our Trellis Fund page.

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