Spring 2008

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College center advances food and water security in Uganda

Clark Richardson is shown teaching sanitation and hygiene to Ugandan grade school students as part of a CSRL program. Mukebeezi Rebecca, one of three students from Makerere University who participated in the program, is shown teaching with Richardson.

Clark Richardson couldn’t believe his eyes. This wasn’t the Africa he’d imagined. Surrounded by skyscrapers, busy city streets and crowded sidewalks, he felt Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, was as developed as other cities around the globe he had visited.

In Namasagali, a rural community 95 miles from Kampala, he found a landscape closer to what he’d expected when he signed up for the service learning project with the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — a landscape of dirt roads, dilapidated dwellings and barefoot children playing in fields.

But, he was still surprised by what he found.

“It was amazing to see agriculture practiced as a means for sustenance, rather than the big scale we’re used to. My view of Africa completely changed. These people aren’t all starving or uneducated,” Richardson said. “They’re not poor because they’re lazy. They’re poor because they lack the inputs to improve their lives. They want to do better, they just need a little help.”

Richardson, a senior in agricultural business, economics and political science, is one of 21 Iowa State students who have worked in Uganda through CSRL. In addition to teaching at a local school, Richardson conducted research to help a local development organization identify new ways to better serve youth in the community.

CSRL provides leadership and support to discover and apply sustainable solutions to world hunger. It was created in 2003 based on a vision shared by ISU and its founding benefactors - the vision of rural people in developing countries empowered to achieve food security and sustainable livelihoods.

After selecting the initial location of Uganda, with hopes to replicate success in other developing countries, the center now facilitates collaboration among faculty from Iowa State with partners at Makerere University in Kampala and Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns (VEDCO), an indigenous nongovernment organization. The work of CSRL is currently focused on the Kamuli District in Uganda.

Wendy Wintersteen, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, sees CSRL as a way for the college to make meaningful impacts on the world while providing students with opportunities to gain experience and expand their world views.

“Establishment of the CSRL, through a significant gift from a generous couple, has allowed the college to provide an opportunity for our students, staff and faculty to be engaged in addressing issues of poverty and hunger on a global scale. Engagement in these issues provides a new perspective that deeply changes their future education and work experiences,” says Wintersteen.

Through the service learning project and many other efforts, CSRL has helped its partners use indigenous and scientific knowledge to increase food security and incomes for small farmers in the Kamuli District. Since 2004, more than 7,500 people in 800 households benefited from CSRL training and assistance. As of mid-2007, 77 percent of participating farm families reported they had achieved food security, up from 40 percent in 2006 and only 9 percent in 2005.

Richardson returned not only with a new understanding of Africa, but also of himself and the United States.

“Seeing the drastic need for education in Uganda made me more aware of the state of education in the U.S.,” Richardson says. “I know now that I want to participate in Teach for America (a national corps of recent college grads who teach in underserved public schools), and make a difference in our country’s educational system.”

CSRL project goals and activities are shaped by local farmers and derived from indigenous knowledge and experiences combined with science-based methods. Examples of completed projects include:

• Constructing a biogas digester (which creates energy from animal waste)
• Conducting malnutrition and health examinations
• Developing a rainwater harvesting tank
• Coordinating funding and construction of six boreholes (deep wells)
• Establishing school fruit and vegetable gardens
• Providing farmer education, including marketing and crop and livestock management
• Educating community-based agriculture and nutritional outreach specialists and trainers

Raymond and Mary Baker Chair in Global Agriculture

David Acker, associate dean of academic and global programs, became the first holder of the Raymond and Mary Baker Chair in Global Agriculture, established by Raymond and Mary Baker and a second anonymous couple, in 2007. The three-year appointment will allow Acker to increase the connection between CSRL and the college’s global and academic programs office.

Online Extra

CSRL Max Rothchild story