Sluse field trip to Thailand and Cambodia

Here in Copenhagen, during the last weeks, we have been extremely busy preparing our field trips to Asia.

Some of us are going to Chiang Mai in Thailand and others to the Banteay Meanchey province in Cambodia. We are working in small groups of students from the University of Copenhagen, preparing our research questions, data collection methods and time schedule for when we are in the field. Once we arrive in Thailand or Cambodia, respectively, we are going to meet Thai and Cambodian students who are going to work together with us on the various research topics.

Rada, our Cambodian study mate here in Copenhagen, and me are with our group looking into the potential for intensification in rice production in a community in Banteay Meanchey. So the past days have been spent on designing interview guidelines and questionnaires that can yield the information we need once we get into contact with local farmers and representatives of various institutions. This is by no means a trivial task and we are racking our brains to find the best way to get complete and relevant information from our target informants.

But obviously the study trip will not only concern our research as such. It will as much be about learning to work in an intercultural environment and under previously unknown conditions; it will be about working together in teams and dealing with the problems this involves and with all the unexpected things that might occur on the way. And of course it will be a unique chance to get an insight into two exciting countries that are unknown to most of us, and to see how people live their everyday life in these places.

In a few days we are leaving for the field and I am personally tremendously excited about it! Naturally, I will update you on everything we experienced – regarding our field work, but obviously also all the gossip about Agris Mundus students that you are all waiting for! :)

Hilsen Maria

Note: more information about Sluse can be found on www.sluse.dk

Thesis projects 2009

Around this time the first AM students of batch 2 already started their thesis research or are in the middle of the preparations. To get an idea what people are doing, hereby a list of subjects, institutions and countries.
For batch 2 students: If you know your subject, organization and country, please mail it to me so that I can complete the list!

• AMBAVARAM Vidya Sagar: Early season rice cultivation: opportunities and constraints. NARC (Nepal Agricultural research Center), Nepal
• ASEBEY Vicente: Citizen Participation in Rural Development.
  Universidad Nacional Agraria, Nicaragua.
• BALASUBRAMANIYAM Urmila: Effect of Irrigation Groundwater Depletion on Livelihoods of Small and Marginal Farmer - A case study from Coimbatore district, Tamilnadu.
  Water Technology Center, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India
• BEN ATTIA Sarra: The role of circadian clock genes in peripheral tissues of agricultural species.
  The University college of Dublin Agriculture and food science centre, Ireland
• CAI Handuo: Payments for environmental services.
  CIFOR IRD, Indonesia
  
• ISMAYILOVA Gunel: Quality of the pork and animal welfare.
  IRTA, Spain
• MACHINGAL Sameer: Effects of exclusion from community forestry on rural livelihood strategies in Nepal.
• TRIFKOVIC Neda: Impact of food standards on export competitiveness of Moroccan citrus value chain.
  Ecole Nationale d'Agriculture de Meknes, Morocco.

News from Catania

Hi everybody…

Catania seems to be the last to post something on the blog so apologies. We were so busy out here and life is so fantastic that it was difficult to try to write on our life here which I shall try now. After the orientation week, we followed a one month intensive course in Italian language which is very important over here as seldom do one find a Catanese who can speak a foreign language.

The city is beautiful lying between the deep blue Mediterranean sea and the volcano (ETNA) . It is a very old city with lots of interesting places worth visiting and things are relatively cheap compared to other places in Europe. Sicilian are very warm people and above all else Italian cuisine is definitely one of the best in the world…personally I’ve fallen in love with the cheeses here especially the ricotta.

We all live in the same house with other local students and often we have common dinner and parties.

At the beginning we had some difficulties especially due to language but then we had some tremendous support from all staffs here especially Alessandro, Luisa and Valentina (all staff of the University of Catania). They helped us settle with all the administrative formalities with the local authorities and were (are still) always full of concern and care towards us.
The master course per se is very enjoyable, delivered by very competent staff and as all courses are delivered in Italian we became very rapidly quite well versed with the language. In all courses we have other Italian students coming from various parts of Italy as Catania is reputed for its university (there are 80, 000 students in Catania) and we have had many activities such as technical visits to farms which were fun.

We have also had the opportunities to follow many interesting seminars and meet some foreign experts in fields of animal nutrition, meat quality, etc. These form an integral part of the master course as we earn credits for attending and participating in such activities. We are also involved in research works such as effects of feeding of tanning on meat quality and other activities such as deliver talks. Actually there is also a reputed scientist Dr. Amrish Tyage from the national Dairy Institute in India who is here with us and sharing his invaluable experience with us.

Hence, we are living a great experience here.

Noor-Ehsan Gobindram (Mauritius)

People based development course in Lucknow, India

From Aditi Vidyarthi, graduate of the AM program in "Food chains and development":

Course Announcement
PEOPLE BASED DEVELOPMENT
A two week programme for development workers at Manavodaya, Lucknow, India.
Dates : 23rd March to 4th April, 2009.


Description

Successful facilitation of people based development calls for a clear vision, strategy, skills as well as a suitable attitude among practitioners. This study programme based in a grassroots setting in India explains how.

The course is being organized by Manavodaya that is recognised as a pioneer of the self help movement in North India having trained thousands of workers and managers of development programmes from India and other parts of the world.

Participants will learn practical methods of social intervention among poor illiterate villagers leading to lasting change in their lives. The conceptual foundation of values, methods and skills shall be shared in classroom sessions while the practice can be observed at field level.

“..is a real and practical way out from poverty in different aspects i.e. empowerment, economic enhancement, social interaction, unity and strength.” Teamrat Belai, Ethiopia

“ The main thing I learned, and I think this program rightfully focuses on is : Action. How to make it happen ? How to change as a person for the better and how to make the social changes in society happen ?” Nina Mobaek, Norway


Cost

The total cost of the programme is USD 1200 per participant. This includes course fees, boarding & lodging costs and field excursion costs. For students the cost is USD 800 per person.

Boarding and lodging is arranged at the institute campus in Lucknow.


Contact
Varun Vidyarthi, Course Coordinator
E mail : manavodaya@eth.net ; varunvidyarthi@gmail.com
Phones : 0091 98393 10461, 0091 522 6568530

Selection of new AM students started this week in Montpellier

This week are all the coordinators of the different universities meeting in Montpellier to start the selection of the new students for Batch 4 (2009-2011).
The results will be published on the Agris Mundus website on March 9th.