Tertiary Institutions’ Students on Excursion Visit CARI Facilities

By CARI staff writer

SUAKOKO, Liberia-More students from tertiary institutions across Liberia are being escorted to the facilities of the Central Agricultural Research Center (CARI), 185km northeast of Monrovia, to have hands-on experience, and to interact with researchers in the field.

Over the last two years, several students from Tubman University, Nimba University, Stella Maris Polytechnic University, Booker Washington Institute, and Zwedru Multilateral High School are among students that have visited the facilities.

Stella Maris Polytechnic University

During a recent field visit, plant breeders and seed specialists at CARI led a batch of 40 junior students from the environmental science department at the Stella Maris Polytechnic University in Monrovia, to tour facilities at the research station in Suakoko, Bong County.

Under the sunny skies in the afternoon when the students disembarked from the vehicle that shuttled them to CARI, they were amazed upon arrival at the aquatic environment, seeing fishponds, hatchery, and the lowland features, moving from one site to another, there were inquiries and responses from both the visitors and their hosts.

The researchers and technicians shared practical knowledge and experience with the class providing insights on some biogeochemical cycles (water, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus).

During the excursion under the guidance and supervision of the lecturer, Mr. Kasualism B. Kansuah, 40 junior students from the university interacted with the researchers and technicians to participate in practical activities that exposed them to the ecological environment of their field research, focusing on how energy flows from the tropic level to another, and the ecosystem existing in Liberia. 

During the site visitation on April 20, 2024, the students interacted with CARI researchers and technicians who guided the environmental science students. The trip covered a lecture on water management, tour of natural dam and major production sites, including rice demonstration site, and other concerns related to CARI natural resource management program.

On behalf of Dr. James S. Dolo, officer-in-charge, Mr. Joseph Nippy welcomed the students at the research station and later provided insight on the rice demonstration site, the impact of iron toxicity on the Suakoko-8, LAC-23 and various varieties of rice from other countries that are being on trials. 

Mr. Joseph Ndebeh, who is a plant breeder and head of the rice unit at the research station, reminds the visiting students about smart agriculture, or the impact of climate change on agricultural practices with specific reference to the susceptibility lowland rice to drought, flood, disease and yield.

Providing the history of the dam, the head of the rice unit emphasizes that the aquaculture program at CARI in also involved in integrated fish and rice farming, and the researchers are training smallholder farmers to take hold of the fish and rice integrated farming method. 

CARI’s core functions among things include the promotion and facilitation of applied and adaptive research in food crops, livestock, fisheries, and natural resource management. The research center also develops and promotes ways of improving the output, quality, harvesting, post-harvesting, handling and processing and marketing of food crops, tree crops, livestock and fisheries produce; maintains and conserves the diversity of genetic resources for food and agriculture, and acts as custodian for these resources, and promotes the effective utilization of these resources in the country.

Earlier, Mr. Wrojay Bardee Potter, plant breeder, discussing the cassava demonstration site at CARI informs the visiting students that the IITA project is jointly funded by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture and CGIAR, a global partnership for a food secure future. The CGIAR gene banks safeguard the world’s largest and most diverse crop and forage germplasm that is indispensable to future food security. 

The IITA and CGIAR, as global leaders in agricultural research and development offer expertise and resources to assist in the development of the cassava value chain, including research, technology transfer, capacity building, and policy advice. Both institutions are also collaborating to achieve Liberia’s agricultural goals and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the country. CGIAR science is dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.

At the end of the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, she entrusted the IITA to build six cassava processing factories for smallholder farmers to process cassava and bean flour. The factories were built and commissioned before her retirement.

On behalf of his colleagues, Abraham Kortu, president of the visiting class extolls the researchers, technicians, and the administration of CARI for allowing interaction with the institution.

In a closing comment, Mr. Kansuah also commends the administration and the technicians at the institution for not only providing guidance to the students but also informing them about the different research activities ongoing at the research institute.

Pledging further collaboration, he used the occasion to extend an invitation to the researchers to visit the Stella Maris Polytechnic University to provide a lecture series for the students in subsequent time. “We are working with both administrations to exchange our students for internship.” 

In fostering further collaboration, Mr. Potter is now a lecturer at the Stella Maris Polytechnic University.

University of Liberia Students

James Kamara, head of agricultural economics and extension at the University of Liberia, says the visit is important because his department is one of the departments of the College of Agriculture and Forestry. He escorted 75 students and three lecturers to CARI.

Our department takes the community engagement need ensuring that farmers and or communities can have a better idea of understanding the new approach to food security in the country.

The extension is never divorced from research as this is the pivotal point in research that stands between the farmers and the research center to interact with farmers and the center to see what exactly they have and see how we can work with what they have in disseminating the innovation for better yield and improved varieties.

“Our take home is the irrigation and the aqua-cultural sector that at the end of our tour to report back to CARI. We have to initiate some research activities that can be linked to the research center. We also have to initiate and collaborate with the research center to come up with some publications as well come up with innovations that farmers in Liberia can benefit from.

We are not to only train students but also to give them the vision that Liberia can only be sanctioned when extension/economic extension to understand the practical issues on the ground so that they understand the farmers when we send them out.