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Submission: Jacqueline Lee
For Farmer to Farmer volunteers Jerry Nolte and Anthony Jilek, the third time was the charm.
After applying for grant funding from the United States Agency for International Development several times, Jerry Nolte and Anthony Jilek, both members of Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas, Inc., had reason for celebration upon learning of the acceptance of their third grant proposal to establish a mentoring program. As a result, USAID awarded the University of Wisconsin - River Falls $103,000 to fund an agricultural exchange program between the University's College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences and the Universidad Nacional Agraria in Managua, Nicaragua. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities administers the program with Jilek, who currently chairs the Animal and Food Science Department at UWRF, as the project director. Agricultural Economics Professor Emeritus Jerry Nolte will oversee the plan to establish relationships with UNA and improve the English language skills of the faculty.
Nolte and Jilek hatched the idea for the project largely as a consequence of participating in the Partners' Farmer to Farmer program. While on assignment with the UNA faculty in Nicaragua, Jilek and Nolte recognized a need for interaction throughout various academic fields. Nolte also noted that most professors with whom he worked held only Masters degrees, with few opportunities to obtain a Ph.D. because of financial constraints and the country's weak economy. As a result, Nolte and Jilek decided to seek funding for the development of a professional mentoring program for these professors.
Because the vast majority of technical and scientific work in agriculture is published in English, it is important for the UNA faculty to be fluent in English. "The grant is directed toward fostering links between U.S. universities and schools in USAID program countries," Nolte explained. "Our main goal is to create mentoring relationships between professors at UWRF and UNA. The program will allow UNA professors to acquire technical knowledge and an understanding of how pedagogy works in the United States."
To achieve these objectives, at least six UNA faculty members will travel to UWRF during 2003 to 2004 to shadow their counterparts for up to ten weeks. While spending time in Wisconsin, the UNA professors will maintain offices among the UWRF faculty, observe classes, engage in research, and get to know the students. Focusing on topics such as animal nutrition, rotational grazing, soil and water conservation, farm financial management, agricultural marketing, and grant writing, the UNA faculty will have access to technical and professional education opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to them.
The Nicaraguan faculty will not only gain first-hand knowledge from their Wisconsin experience, they will also have the opportunity to return their host's hospitality since the exchange works both ways. As time in their teaching and research allows, five selected UWRF faculty members will serve as visiting professors at UNA under the program guidelines, including Jilek. "This collaboration will help to internationalize the UWRF faculty and strengthen the mentoring relationship between the two universities," Nolte said.
Jilek said Nicaragua has had many setbacks in the form of natural disasters, including hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and droughts, in addition to civil wars. What it needs most to overcome these setbacks is education. So many people are uneducated and qualified teachers at any level are scarce.
The exchange program will also reinforce the Wisconsin/Nicaragua chapter of Partners of the Americas, Inc. and support their Farmer to Farmer program - the chapter being a leader in volunteer recruitment. In the last two years alone, Wisconsin's Farmer to Farmer program has sent 51 volunteers on assignments to Nicaragua. "The mentoring program has this cultural experience and exchange dimension to it in which Partners is heavily involved," Nolte commented. "Since we will be working with people who we worked with through Farmer to Farmer before, the program will keep us heavily involved in activities beyond Partners."
The Partners' Farmer to Farmer program works to improve economic opportunities in rural areas of Latin America and the Caribbean by increasing food production and distribution, promoting better farm and marketing operations, and conserving natural resources. Jilek and Nolte are two of the many Farmer to Farmer volunteers who travel to Latin America and the Caribbean every year to provide technical assistance to farmers and ranchers, helping them to identify local needs and design projects to address them. Supported by Congress and USAID as part of the United States foreign assistance program, the Farmer to Farmer program brings together agricultural professionals and practitioners from across the western hemisphere.
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