Empowering Agricultural Resilience Through Holistic Strategy (EARTH)

August 2024. Mr. Parker Jones, Mr. Esmaeil Nasrollahiazar, and Mr. Andy Fles

Parker and Esmaeil traveled to the Republic of Georgia with Michigan vineyard manager Andy Fles to assess the production and business potential of the country’s wine and agritourism sectors. Georgia is building on its 8,000-year history of wine making to position themselves as an international leader in sustainable agritourism.

The project focus was a conference co-hosted with Grigol Robakidze University (GRUNI) titled: International Conference on Wine Diversification and Global Export. Presenters from Italy, the Republic of Georgia, and the United States, representing 8 universities, presented at the conference.

Other outcomes include 4 agritourism business site visits, deeper collaboration with GRUNI, and a new partnership with the LEPL Scientific-Research Center of Agriculture. In year two of the project, MSU Extension will host a faculty member from GRUNI for professional development. Together they will create business case studies for the Georgian agritourism sector.

Press releases from other project partners:

Collaboration with Indonesia’s Aquaculture and Fisheries Extension Program

Dr. Lauren Jescovitch and Mr. Elliot Nelson

June- July 2024. Lauren and Elliot traveled to Java, Indonesia with funding by the project “Improving Aquaculture Literacy from Great Lakes to Great Seas” in NOAA Sea Grant’s FY2023 Aquaculture Technologies and Education Travel Grant. Outcomes included expanding existing partnerships with Ministry of Marine Affairs and higher education, documenting fish production, delivering workshops, and recruiting students to join the Aquaculture Challenge program. A collaborative research proposal emerged from this experience, titled Implementation of Backwards Design Using the Logic Model to Enhance Indonesia’s Aquaculture and Fisheries Extension Program. The goal of the project is to measure impacts of Indonesia’s fisheries Extension program using the Theory of Backwards Design.

Agricultural Education for the Deaf Community in Ghana 

February-March 2024. Extension Educator Phil Kaatz traveled Kumasi, Ghana to provide educational programming in agriculture to the Deaf community.  The Deaf are an underserved population that struggles with language and food security, and are considered working poor. Additionally, there is a lack of general agriculture training for growing local food. There is food, but the population is generations removed from knowing how to grow food. Phil approached the goals of this trip as an educational opportunity to reduce food insecurity in the deaf population based on the idea “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Topics covered included entrepreneurial enterprise establishment, the value of good soil fertility, using improved agriculture techniques, pesticide safety, and the use of low-cost organic soil building with compost. The trip also resulted in building more relationships with nonprofit and higher education to allow for further collaborative work.

Ukrainian Agriculture Visit

June 2024. MSU Extension hosted four farmer owners from Ukraine who were interested in getting into vegetable production, or improving their current production techniques, in response to uncertainty during the war with Russia. Accompanying the farmers was an interpreter and the co-founders of BRIDGES, which is a privatized Extension service in Ukraine, specializing in consultation, education, and work-study trips. They visited Michigan’s most prominent vegetable growers over four days and also prepared a talk describing the effects of war on Ukraine’s agribusiness sector. Contact: Ben Phillips.

Workshop for bovine practitioners and dairy professionals - Milking and Humane Euthanasia

March 2024. Over 80 participants learned about the latest milking technologies and research. The euthanasia workshop focused on the welfare aspect of it and the use of captive bolt device

Both workshops were offered in the Central and Southern region of Chile. Contact: Paola Bacogalupo Sanguesa.

Cochran Fellowship Program- Nigerian Farm Management

September 2019. With the funding support from the United State Department of Agriculture – Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS) seven Cochran fellows from Nigeria received two-weeks training in Agricultural Management MSU during  August 25 - September 6, 2019.  

The team from Nigeria represented various organizations in agricultural services in Nigeria. The two-week program included interactive presentations as well as field visits to various facilities across the state of Michigan, including MSU Extension offices and agricultural research stations, a USDA office, commercial farms, Amish farms, post-production storage facilities, agricultural cooperatives, Detroit's Eastern Market and urban farming sites, and the MSU Anaerobic Digestion facility. Contact: Anne Baker

  • Visiting a goat farm and creamery.

  • Discussing different technologies

  • Visit to the MSU Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center.

  • Visiting a small farm and learning about harvest methods.

  • Taking a watermelon break during a field visit

  • Learning about Post-Harvest Processing

  • At the MSU Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center

  • Fellows arriving in East Lansing, MI

  • On MSU's campus

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