US officials visit NWU School of Agriculture

Officials from the Department of Agriculture of the United States of America (USDA) visited the School of Agriculture on the Mafikeng Campus of the North-West University (NWU) on 16 March 2017.

The delegation from the USDA's Borlaug office in Washington, led by James "Jim" Remcheck, visited the campus to give an overview of its Borlaug programme and how it could benefit the school. He was accompanied by Abigail Nguema and Margaret Ntloedibe from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Embassy in Pretoria.

The Borlaug Fellowship Programme provides opportunities for short-term research projects to improve agricultural productivity, economic development and food security. It offers training and collaborative opportunities for agricultural research, international agricultural economics, leadership and policy to researchers. Competitively selected fellows will work one-on-one with a US mentor who will coordinate the training programme.

After completion of the 10-12 week fellowship, the mentor will visit the fellow's home institution to continue collaboration. The USDA will select US host institutions and mentors for each fellow.

Applications on approved topics for each country are selected.

"This programme will provide a great opportunity for young academics to gain valuable expertise, which will in turn benefit the faculty by providing training and collaborative research opportunities," said Prof Helen Drummond, acting dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Science and Technology.