Here is a copy of our email newsletter, for at-a-glance updates from our program. Many of the items below are highlights from our blog posts. You can see our other newsletters here, or subscribe to get your own email copy next time.
It’s been a busy time for the Horticulture Innovation Lab team, with travelers crossing the globe for conferences, trainings, and research trips. Highlights below include trips to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Guatemala, and … Wisconsin! Please enjoy.
TRAINING NEW POSTHARVEST EXPERTS IN BANGLADESH A team from the Horticulture Innovation Lab recently led eight days of training in Bangladesh about improving postharvest practices for fruits, vegetables, grains and flowers. The residential training was part of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Agricultural Value Chain project led by DAI, for about 30 trainers, consultants, and other industry leaders. Read the synopsis below, or here’s the whole article: http://bit.ly/1iAOclm.
The training focused on common horticultural crops in Bangladesh: eggplant, tomato, pepper, cucumber, pumpkin, bitter gourd, pointed gourd, bottle gourd, potato, and mango. Additional sections of the training focused on grains, pulses and fresh-cut flowers.
The Horticulture Innovation Lab’s postharvest specialists built an international team of experts for this training, including: Jingtair Siriphanich, Kietsuda Luengwilai, and Apita Bunsiri from Kasetsart University in Thailand; Md. Atiqur Rahmn from the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI); and Md. Younus Ali from the Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI). Michael Reid, Angelos Deltsidis, and Britta Hansen led the team from UC Davis, and were joined by Bangladeshi colleagues Amrita Mukherjee and Rezaul Islam.
The UC Davis team brought an assortment of produce fact sheets, informational materials, and other supplies from the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center. Each participant started the class with their own new kit of equipment — tools that they would learn how to use to improve the quality of crops after harvest.
Over the course of the training, the class learned about various stages of the horticultural value chain, with best practices for harvest, packaging, grading, transportation, cooling, ripening, and drying. In addition to lectures, each of these stages also included interactive group activities so that trainees could witness the impact of the lessons on the fresh produce.
Read or share the whole article, including details of the hands-on activities: http://bit.ly/1gd7fR8
*** PROGRAM NEWS ***
MITCHAM HONORED BY ASHS Elizabeth Mitcham, director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab at UC Davis, was honored by the American Society for Horticultural Sciences as the 2015 Outstanding International Horticulturist: http://bit.ly/1i24ByF
*** IN THE NEWS ***
TRELLIS ARTICLE IN NEWSPAPER Three UC Davis graduate students who participated in Trellis Fund projects with the Horticulture Innovation Lab this summer shared their experiences in Kenya, Malawi and Bangladesh with the Davis Enterprise newspaper: http://bit.ly/1ER2NDB
AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS, IN SCIDEV.NET VIDEO A reporting team from the SciDev.Net website interviewed Poonpipope Kasemsap and other colleagues at Kasetsart University for a short video about technologies they promote with the Horticulture Innovation Lab’s Regional Center, including the CoolBot, solar dryers, and solar-powered drip irrigation: http://bit.ly/1OEs3N3
6 TIPS TO AVOID POSTHARVEST LOSS, IN GROWING PRODUCE The Growing Produce website interviewed Angelos Deltsidis, the Horticulture Innovation Lab’s new international postharvest specialist, for tips about reducing losses in fresh produce: http://bit.ly/1EQk1Rk
*** TRAVEL UPDATES ***
BUILDING IRRIGATION PARTNERSHIPS IN GUATEMALA A Horticulture Innovation Lab team from UC Davis and North Carolina A&T State University visited with organizations and farmers in Guatemala recently to finalize plans for an upcoming irrigation project: http://bit.ly/1iAOtF2
GRAFTING TEAM GATHERS IN WISCONSIN Scientists, farmers and students from Central America gathered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a training led by grafting experts with the Horticulture Innovation Lab’s ‘Plántulas de Esperanza’ team: http://bit.ly/1OEsffu
SUCCESSFUL CONFERENCE IN CAMBODIA Many of our partners spoke at the ISHS ‘SEAsia 2015’ Postharvest Symposium in Cambodia, co-sponsored by the Horticulture Innovation Lab and organized with leadership from the Royal University of Agriculture: http://bit.ly/1OgEaCa
*** OPPORTUNITIES ***
AWARD NOMINATIONS: EARLY CAREER WOMEN SCIENTISTS Sept. 15 is the deadline to nominate an early-career, woman scientist in a developing country for this year’s awards from Elsevier, focused on agriculture and biological sciences: http://bit.ly/1UJp1Jq
WEBINAR: USING THE WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN AG INDEX The Agrilinks website is hosting a webinar on Sept. 16 about how the WEIA works and how it can be used to capture levels of women’s inclusion in agricultural sectors: http://bit.ly/1L4ByGA
CONCEPT NOTES: PRO-WEIA Agricultural projects interested in piloting a project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEIA) can apply by Sept. 18 to participate: http://bit.ly/1MehUJu
FELLOWSHIP: U.S. BORLAUG FELLOWS IN GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY Nov. 9 is the deadline for U.S. graduate students to apply for research grant support, for a project taking place in a developing country with a mentor from a qualifying national or international agricultural researcher organization: http://bit.ly/1iv240u
*** SEE YOU NEXT TIME. Thanks for reading! Send international horticultural news tips our way, any time. We’re on Twitter @HortInnovLab, on email at horticulture@ucdavis.edu and on our blog: https://blog.horticulture.ucdavis.edu/.
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HORTICULTURE INNOVATION LAB
We build international partnerships for fruit and vegetable research to improve livelihoods in developing countries. Our program is led by the University of California, Davis, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.
http://horticulture.ucdavis.edu
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This email is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.
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