Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Highlights 58, Chukwudi Charles Olumba, September 2019.

The Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project (NAPP) organized a workshop for graduate students and staff of Faculty of Agriculture, Ebonyi State University (EBSU), Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The workshop took place on June 26th, 2019. It was hosted by the Department of Agricultural Economics, Management and Extension at EBSU.

The workshop, facilitated by a NAPP Scholar (Chukwudi Charles Olumba), was based on NAPP’s ideology of ‘Train One to Train Others’. The Scholar, during his first semester at Michigan State University (MSU), took a course on Empirical Methods for Field Research in Developing Countries (AFRE 874).

This course is a popular graduate course offered for advanced Masters and PhD students in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics. It covers the most current (international best practices) micro econometric research methods. These include randomized control trials, propensity score matching, and regression discontinuity. It also provides students with a firm grounding on the key elements of research design, sampling, questionnaire design, data collection and analysis of multi-topic household surveys for international development issues. On returning to Nigeria for the summer break, the scholar did a “step down session” at EBSU.

Opening remarks at the step down, were made by the Head of the host department, Associate Professor S.U. Nwibo. He expressed satisfaction with the NAPP scholar’s relentless effort in keeping the EBSU flag flying and urged the graduate students to tread this part. Additionally, Professor J. O. Alimba commended the NAPP ideology of “Train One to Train Others” and encouraged the participants to regard the workshop as a golden opportunity. A total of 64 participants (33 males and 31 females, comprising 19 faculty staff and 45 graduate students) attended the workshop.

The workshop titled “Research Methodology” was drawn from lectures and lecture notes of Professor Nakasone, delivered at MSU. Each slide addressed core concepts in the research method, including research design and the different identification approaches, theory of change, questionnaire design, sampling techniques, measurement error and methods of addressing sensitive questions.

Overall, the workshop was interactive. Each slide was well-explained with practical examples which helped to further deepen the participants’ understanding about research. The participants commended NAPP and promised to employ the knowledge gained in their various research work.