Nancy Beckage, a professor of entomology, and of cell biology and neuroscience, has received a share of a U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (USDA/CSREES) Higher Education Challenge grant, of which she is a co-principal investigator.

The $462,329 three-year grant will enable Beckage and other faculty to train undergraduate and graduate students at UCR, Montana State University, Virginia Tech, UC Davis, Chief Dull Knife College in Montana and the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, to develop rapport and conduct short-term research projects with small-scale farming villages in Mali, West Africa.

Beckage will receive $53,382 over three years to support student and faculty participation in the project, which is titled “New Paradigm for Discovery-based Learning: Implementing Bottom-up Development by Listening to Farmers’ Needs Using Participatory Process and Whole System (Holistic) Thinking.”

Florence Dunkel of Montana State University is the grant’s principal investigator.

Beckage, who specializes in insect physiology, host-parasite relationships, and mosquito biology and control, will serve as a mentor for UCR students doing short-term research projects related to agriculture and human health in Mali. Her proteges will work with Malian subsistence farmers using a “farmer’s first” holistic approach to improve agricultural productivity at the village level.

Initially, two or three UCR students will go to Mali in spring 2009.
“The students will accompany me for short-term visits of two to three weeks,” Beckage said.

Led by her, the UCR team will work with a network of mentors from the Mali Agri-Business Network as well as the National Agricultural University and the National Agricultural Research Organization in Mali to address the most important problems Malian farmers face related to health, such as malnutrition and the lack of potable water. Some of Beckage’s students will work on developing biologically based control strategies to reduce mosquito populations and control vector-borne diseases like malaria.

Beckage is seeking additional funding to support short-term visits to Mali for more UCR student externs and faculty in areas such as engineering, environmental science, economics, linguistics and plant biology/pathology. Along with Anil Deolalikar, a professor of economics, she will offer a new course next year – “Global Health, Agriculture, and Economic Development” – to prepare undergraduate students for working in developing countries such as Mali.

UCR’s connection with African farming dates back to the 1980s. Researchers have provided assistance to African scientists developing improved cowpea varieties for poor farmers in Africa. Since 2002, UCR has collaborated with cowpea breeding programs in Burkina Faso and Cameroon.