Miriam Karwitha experienced first-hand the devastating effects of perennial drought and diseases on her family’s coffee farm from a young age. This fueled her desire to develop sustainable solutions, further informing her to study plant pathology at Masters and Ph.D. levels.

About three decades ago, the United States officially dedicated and recognized March as the Women’s History Month, when the contributions of women to society are highlighted and recognized. In the recent past, the United Kingdom and Australia have also declared March as the women’s month, and Canada marks it in October. South Africa commemorates Women’s Month every August. Globally, the annually celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) falls on March 8; this year’s IWD theme was ‘Balance for Better.’ With a growing momentum toward ensuring equal participation of men and women and finding a gender balance for optimal use of available resources and opportunities, the focus is not just on the socio-political arena. What are other sectors such as agricultural research and development doing to achieve gender balance for better?

Dr. Mariam Soma, a 2019 AWARD Fellow, from Burkina Faso, and Dr. Austin Phiri, a 2019 One Planet Laureate Candidate from Malawi are among five recipients of the 2020 Young African Phosphorus awards. The Young African Phosphorus Awards include USD $5,000 conferred to five early-career African scientists each to support research focusing on understanding and improving phosphorus management in agroecosystems. The awards are sponsored by the African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), and the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP) Group.

A 2009 AWARD Fellow and a three-time Mentor, Bolanle otegbayo, from Nigeria has been promoted to the rank of professor at Bowen University, Nigeria. Professor Otegbayo is a food scientist and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Food Science and Technology at Bowen University in Nigeria. She holds an MSc and a PhD in Food Technology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Her research interest involves investigating the food quality and industrial potential of Nigerian yams to contribute to the expansion and diversification of their use.

Earlier this October, Dr. Fetien Abay Abera, a 2010 African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellow and professor of Plant Breeding and Seed at?Mekelle University, Ethiopia, was named as a the second runner-up for the Impact Research and Science in Africa (IMPRESSA) Award of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM). The award, which was announced at RUFORUM’s 13th?Annual General Meeting in Lilongwe, Malawi, was established in 2009 and recognizes "outstanding university-led contributions to development through agricultural research and science, human and institutional capacity building." To those familiar with Dr. Abera’s work, that she is a recipient of the IMPRESSA Award comes as no surprise.? Dr. Abera is a woman of many firsts; she was the first female lecturer at Mekelle University, and the first Professor in Plant Breeding and Seed in the Department of Dryland Crop and Horticultural Sciences in Ethiopia. In addition to maintaining her work as a tenured professor at Mekelle University, Dr. Abera is the director of Institute of Environment, Gender, and Development Studies (IEGDS), and an associate editor for the Journal of Dryland Agriculture, and much more.

I won the AWARD Advanced Science Training (AST) opportunity and was awarded a placement at?DuPont Pioneer?in collaboration with Iowa State University (ISU) in the USA. The training I am undertaking will significantly improve my skills, experience and knowledge in the use of modern biotechnology for crop improvement to contribute to food security and improved livelihoods. While at DuPont, I am privileged to be mentored by two leading women scientists in this field, Prof. Maria Salas-Fernandez from the Department of Agronomy, at ISU and Dr. Laura Higgins from DuPont.

Ana Lidia Gungulo was motivated to study agriculture by a government official, who visited her school and spoke of agriculture’s importance for Mozambique’s development and future. Until then, Gungulo, whose mother cultivated rice, had only considered farming from the narrow context of her family. “Suddenly, I understood that on a broader scale, agriculture is very big and has the potential to better the lives of a great many people,” she says.

Like other AWARD laureates and mentors, I left the Mentoring Orientation Workshop (MOW) as a very?motivated young scientist, enlightened with the understanding that it is up to me to create my future, based on my daily decisions.

Malawian AWARD Fellow Chikondi Precious Chabvuta is recognized by the Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa

AWARD Fellow Dr. Stella Ennin recently received a 2012 Ghana Women of Excellence Award from the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs for her contributions to scientific research and agricultural development. Ennin is the first female deputy director of the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana. She is also the first female in the entire organization, which is made up of 13 institutes, to reach the highest grade?of chief research scientist. 

AWARD Fellow/Mentor Dr. Charity Mutegi, a young Kenyan scientist, who currently serves as the Kenya Country Coordinator for the Aflasafe Project for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), on assignment from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), was named winner of the prestigious?Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, Endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Pest infestation is a huge challenge that livestock keepers continuously face. Medicines for control and treatment of pest-related diseases are costly and sometimes inaccessible for most rural farmers. A 2015 AWARD Fellow and a research fellow at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), Mwanaisha Mkangara, is building on traditional methods of pest control to develop more sustainable and accessible options for farmers. Using locally available herbal plants and her scientific skills, Mkangara has produced a cheaper and more accessible alternative method for livestock pest control.

The first part of this was published last week and both episodes have been culled from a recent interview I had with Dr. Mavis Owureku-Asare, a recipient of the OWSD Early Career Fellowship, a prestigious fellowship that awards up to $50,000 to women who have completed their doctorates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) on Breakfast Daily on Citi TV.

Dr. Wude Tsega is a researcher at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and one of the AWARD Fellows under the AWARD-EIAR partnership. She was a visiting researcher at the Roslin Institute as part of her fellowship with and funding from the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health through a BBSRC GCRF-STARS award.

Dr. Sheila Okoth, a Kenyan research scientist, is in the process of finding a sustainable solution to fungal contamination and mycotoxin production in foods, including aflatoxins. She leads an interdisciplinary and farmer participatory project on Conservation and Sustainable Management of Below ground Biodiversity (CSM-BGBD).

AWARD Fellows Nessie Dietrich Luambano and Olajumoke Alabi were selected among 753 applicants and three female finalists, to receive the 2014 PEARL (Program for Emerging Agricultural Research Leaders) grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

I am writing from the University of Iceland, where I am in the second year of my doctoral studies, focusing on ecotoxicology and geothermal power plant emissions. I’m on a study leave from the Geothermal Development Company in Kenya, where I work as an environmental scientist.

Angela Eni Obiageli is the first AWARD Fellow to undertake her Advanced Science Training with the John Innes Centre in Norwich, United Kingdom, following a recent partnership between AWARD and the institution. The John Innes Centre is an independent international centre of excellence in plant science and microbiology.

To kick-off the eighth round of the AWARD Fellowship, a mentoring orientation workshop for the selected fellows and their mentors was held on February 19-23, 2018. The current cohort of AWARD Fellows is truly global comprising 28 scientists drawn from 8 Francophone and 4 Anglophone African countries, Spain, Fiji and Bangladesh. Among the participants at this workshop were Arshni Shandil and her mentor Logotonu Waqainabete from Fiji. 

Christine Mukantwali, a 2010 AWARD Fellow, is interviewed about her goals to see Rwandans make better use of their crops, particularly pineapples, which in turn will help reduce poverty and malnutrition.

Mavis Owureku-Asare is a specialist in food preservation and post-harvest management of fresh agricultural produce. She is a Research Scientific Officer at the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute - Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. She earned her BSc in Nutrition and Food Science and MPhil in Food Science, both from the University of Ghana.

Together with Lillian Wambua and Nimmo Gacheru, Racheal Aye was one of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) scientists among 70 African women agricultural researchers selected for the 2011 fellowships of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), which were announced on Thursday 18 August at Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi. AWARD is an initiative of the Gender and Diversity program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Pest infestation is a huge challenge that livestock keepers continuously face. Medicines for control and treatment of pest-related diseases are costly and sometimes inaccessible for most rural farmers. A 2015 AWARD Fellow and a research fellow at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), Mwanaisha Mkangara, is building on traditional methods of pest control to develop more sustainable and accessible options for farmers. Using locally available herbal plants and her scientific skills, Mkangara has produced a cheaper and more accessible alternative method for livestock pest control.

The gender gap when it comes to access of land, uptake of technology, fertilizer and markets has always been unfavourable for women not just in Kenya, but globally. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that if women were given the same access as men, yields on their farms would increase by about 30 per cent, and world hunger would reduce by close to 15 per cent. However, the reality of the disparity exists, and it is even greater among women in agricultural research. Smart Harvest sampled a few notable women in research to talk about their research, input and the lessons they have learnt.

Smallholder farmers to greatly benefit from the development of Coolbot, a cold storage technology expected to contribute to the reduction of postharvest losses. AWARD Fellow and lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Dr. Jane Ambuko, who is spearheading the piloting of the Coolbot Innovation in Africa, recently spoke to journalist, Maureen Odiwuor of the Standard Newspaper, at the Second African Conference of Science Journalists held in Nairobi, Kenya.

‘As a little girl, growing up in the arid Makueni District of Kenya’s Eastern Province, my family’s few goats, chicken and humped zebu cattle were the most important assets we had. The sandy and stony land although vast, was largely unproductive. Unable to count on growing food crops, our livestock were the key to our livelihood. The same holds true for rural populations across much of the African continent. Livestock are essential to their wellbeing.’

AWARD Pilot Program Fellow Dr. Jane Ininda has produced and commercialized 26 different maize strains and 180 other crop varieties with fellow scientists, which are planted in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, and South Africa, and she is not about to stop.

Motivated by a desire to develop solutions for farmers to combat crop losses and help ease their suffering, AWARD Fellow Miriam Otipa pursued a career as a scientist, becoming a leading plant researcher in Kenya.

Some smallholder commercial fish farmers in the South-South region of Nigeria are reducing feeding costs by about 15 percent through provision of free insects for fish to consume all night long. Ebinimi Ansa, an aquaculture researcher and African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellow, who has been at the forefront of innovative aquaculture researches, says “Even when there is no electricity supply, hanging a lantern on poles near the fish pond can produce the same result.” She says this is more easily achieved in places where there is vegetation, especially in rural areas that are surrounded by thick vegetation.

Florence Habwe, a doctoral fellow at Maseno University, has received the prestigious Young Scientist National Award (Life Sciences) from the African Union (AU) and The World of Academic Sciences (TWAS) in recognition of her research on the preservation of African indigenous vegetables.

Jacqueline Kariithi discovered the geography and natural beauty of Kenya as a child, traveling with her family during school holidays. Today, she is researching ways to tap into the tourism potential of some of her country’s neglected natural sites, while also promoting the livelihoods of women and local communities.

Ana Lidia Gungulo was motivated to study agriculture by a government official, who visited her school and spoke of agriculture’s importance for Mozambique’s development and future. Until then, Gungulo, whose mother cultivated rice, had only considered farming from the narrow context of her family. “Suddenly, I understood that on a broader scale, agriculture is very big and has the potential to better the lives of a great many people,” she says.

AWARD Fellow Eugenie Kayitesi took the opportunity to influence 45 students during a role-modelling event in the food science department at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

AWARD Fellow Edna Mutua has been awarded a PhD scholarship with the University of Nairobi. Edna will be undertaking anthropological studies, examining gendered community adaptation to Rift Valley Fever and Malaria in Baringo County, Kenya. Edna’s university studies initially took a seemingly different direction, as she earned a BA in Literature and Philosophy. But ultimately, these disciplines brought her back to agriculture, and she decided to pursue an MA in Gender and Development Studies.

AWARD Fellow Dr. Mary Apetorgbor recently held a successful role modelling event in partial fulfillment of her Fellowship. The event held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana, attracted over 500 participants from primary and secondary schools, universities and colleges, the farming community and even academicians.

The adage “waste not, want not” is University of Nairobi horticultural researcher Dr. Jane Ambuko’s vision for her own country and for Africa, where the equivalent of four billion dollars’ worth of food is lost annually due to inefficiencies across the agricultural value chain after crops are harvested, according to a study by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. This kind of food waste is referred to as “postharvest loss” and has many causes ranging from poor infrastructure for transporting agricultural goods to improper or outdated food storage practices. 

AWARD Fellow Dr. Florence Lubwama Kiyimba claimed second place in the prestigious, continent-wide Women in Science Competition, announced at the recent Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW) in Accra, Ghana.

Sharing her knowledge and expertise about sweet-potato breeding, AWARD Fellow Dr. Felistus Chipungu encouraged a group of Malawian farmers to look at new applications and techniques for their sweet potato crops. Her successful training event, held at the Nsikawanjala extension planning area in Mulanje district, drew some 200 farmers, the majority of whom were women.

As part of her AWARD Fellowship career development program, Chapwa Kasoma had the opportunity to not only attend but present a paper at the International Conference on Advances in Agricultural Biological and Environmental Sciences, in London, United Kingdom. At the conference, Chapwa successfully presented her paper titled, ‘Microsatellite Marker Application in the Assessment of Sorghum Genetic Diversity,’ a fete to which she credits the trainings she has undertaken at AWARD, particularly the AWARD Science Writing Course.

Catherine Mloza Banda, an agricultural value chain officer at Farm Radio Trust Malawi and a 2015 AWARD Fellow, this year was nominated to participate in the European Union Future Leaders Program held from June 3 to 4, 2015 in Brussels, Belgium during the European Development Daysconference. Selected from a pool of 172 candidates from around the world, Banda primarily focused her participation and presentations on the theme topic “Feeding the planet together”.

“Winning the African Union Kwame Nkrumah prize means a lot to me. The award gives me a great feeling and validates my many years of my hard work,” says Yalemtsehay Mekonnen, a professor at the University of Addis Ababa. Professor Mekonnen won the award for her scientific achievement and findings that have contributed to the agricultural development of the continent.

Despite glaring shortcomings in Africa's food security as illustrated by the drought and related famine engulfing the Horn of Africa, female researchers still make up less than 25 percent of Africa's agricultural scientists.

Rabbitfish researcher Nina Wambiji talks about AWARD has helped her become a leading expert in her field in this video produced by SciDev.

Having grown up in a rural Kiambu village, Mary Njenga knows only too well the effect of wood fuel on communities, especially women and girls who are often charged with the responsibility of collecting firewood in Kenya. “I remember how it felt to walk for long distances in search of wood, and later carry the heavy load on my back. I would arrive home at dusk very tired and with no energy to do anything else,” says Dr. Njenga. “Back in the kitchen, I and my sisters would sit around the fire as we helped mum prepare meals. All this time, we would inhale smoke emanating from wood fuel not knowing that it was dangerous for our health.” These painful experiences coupled with her love for the environment drove Dr. Njenga to search for an alternative cooking fuel that would benefit women and save them from the ordeal she had endured while young.

From October 2016 on, the Laboratory of Food Analysis hosts two AWARD fellows: Mrs. Marguerite Niybituronsa (Ruanda) and Mrs. Ifeoluwa Adekoya (Nee Olotu) (Nigeria). AWARD is a career-development program that since 2008 has equipped top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate agricultural gains by strengthening their science and leadership skills, through tailored fellowships.

Bolanle Otegbayo, a Nigerian national, AWARD Fellow, and later AWARD Mentor, has won the prestigious ‘Programme for Emerging Agricultural Research Leaders’ (PEARL II) grant, worth USD500,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her project, which proposes to “Develop Indicators for Phenotyping Food Quality Traits in Dioscorea Yam” was one of only 7, from among 500 submissions to reach the primary stage of the competition.

Winning this fellowship has made me to progress academically,” says Olotu. “It has increased my visibility and networks and significantly led to the development of my scientific, problem solving and communication skills. I’m looking forward to encouraging the participation of women and girls in science.

AWARD congratulates Mercy Wamalwa for being one of the 2016 Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum (WIT) award winners. Wamalwa was recognized for her research, “Maximizing the potential for sustainable and durable resistance to the wheat yellow rust pathogen”. She describes this opportunity as a career defining moment and a motivation to excel.

Malawian AWARD Fellow Chikondi Precious Chabvuta is recognized by the Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa

I won the AWARD Advanced Science Training (AST) opportunity and was awarded a placement at DuPont Pioneer in collaboration with Iowa State University (ISU) in the USA. The training I am undertaking will significantly improve my skills, experience and knowledge in the use of modern biotechnology for crop improvement to contribute to food security and improved livelihoods. While at DuPont, I am privileged to be mentored by two leading women scientists in this field, Prof. Maria Salas-Fernandez from the Department of Agronomy, at ISU and Dr. Laura Higgins from DuPont.

The tomato is one of the basic elements in African cooking; and Ghana is no exception to the rule. Although a tomato producer (350,000 tons per year/FAO), the country imports a large quantity to meet the population's needs, primarily because nearly 40-50 percent of tomatoes produced in Ghana are lost or discarded as post harvest losses.

Binta Iliyasu grew up in northern Nigeria, where she was among the third primary class to ever be established in Bari, Rogo local government area in Kano State. “Education was delayed in getting to our region,” she says. “But my parents were enlightened by the missionaries about its importance, and they risked sending me and other girls to school.”

I was also inspired by my mother, who was taken out of school after second grade, only to enrol in adult education decades later to learn how to read, write, and sign her own name. Graduating with a BSc in Agriculture and Human Ecology Extension from Egerton University in 2004, I thought I would advance in my work as a scientist at the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). Although my employer recognized my hard work and outputs in terms of publications and results, promotions are pegged to education. To advance you must align yourself with the system.

Sónia Maciel was recently published in Livestock Research for Rural Development, the peer-reviewed international journal for research into sustainable developing world agriculture. The article, Feedlot performance of the Nguni ecotypes in southern Mozambique, was also published as a short communication in the South African Journal of Animal Science.

AWARD Fellow, Sarah Mayanja, a Research Associate and Agricultural Market Specialist at the International Potato Center (CIP), gave the following presentation during the AGRINATURA Science Days dedicated to “Growing together: Family farming and agricultural sciences transforming world food systems” (Vienna, 5-8 May 2014).

Olutola’s participation in the international conference was sponsored by the AWARD Fellowship as part of the science skills building package, which supports fellows’ attendance to international conferences.

Research fellow Norah Ndege attended the second International Conference on Global Food Security, as part of her career development fellowship with AWARD. At the conference organized by Elsevier and held at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York City from October 11–14, 2015, Nora presented her paper titled, “Reducing post-harvest losses of perishable fruit through processing: How efficient is training for behaviour change of smallholder farmers in Eastern Kenya.

AWARD Fellow Nkumbu Mutwale, a research officer at the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, recently spoke to some 250 female students at Kabunda Girls Secondary School in Mansa, Zambia, a poor rural area where people earn their livelihoods through fishing and cassava cultivation. Early marriages are common here and education is not always valued.

Mphangera Kamanga of Malawi, a 2015 AWARD Fellow, seized the opportunity to attend a conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The conference titled, ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Global Food Security,’ was organized by The International Institute of Knowledge Management (TIIKM) in collaboration with Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir and University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, India. It attracted researchers from over 20 different countries across the world who showcased their research work through oral presentations and posters.

Mojisola Esther Ojebode, was the top innovator in the agriculture sector of the annual Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) Tech-I competition for science and technology entrepreneurs from emerging economies worldwide that was held in the run up to the  recently concluded Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), that was hosted in  Nairobi, Kenya. She emerged the winner of the 30 finalists drawn from around the world.

Born in Maputo, Mozambique, Melvis Cossa, a 2015 African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellow, best describes her career in agricultural research as a “Twist of fate”. While studying for her bachelor’s degree at the Pedagogical University of Mozambique, Cossa was required to choose an area of specialization.  On a whim, she selected biology, and began an internship in a biotechnology laboratory where she became fascinated with the laboratory work, thus, paving a path for her in the field of agriculture. Later she earned a master’s degree in genetics and biotechnology from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, in Juiz de Fora, Brazil. It was during this time in her career path that she learnt about AWARD through a friend, and she was then encouraged to apply in hopes of improving her science research skills.

AWARD Fellow Mavis Owureku-Asare is Research Scientific Officer at the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.

My scientific skills in genetic diversity, my area of research, really increased beyond my imagination. I learned that I lacked the basic techniques for a more meaningful.

Ambuko’s area of specialization is postharvest science and technology. Her research focus is postharvest loss management in horticultural commodities, especially among smallholder farmers. She is currently working in several multi-institutional research projects focused on increasing productivity and profitability of horticultural and related enterprises.

At the beginning of the talk, students were asked what they would want to become when they completed their studies. None of the students wanted to be involved in agriculture but by the end of the talk, the students were excited about the potential held by pursuing a career in agriculture,” shares Anne Omamo, AWARD Progam Assistant, Fellowships and Institutional Partnerships. “The role modelling event was very beneficial because 80% of the students were willing and excited to consider agriculture and science, as future careers. Their minds were opened up to the great opportunities that lie ahead

Gladness Elibariki Temu, Assistant Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) recently defended her PhD thesis successfully and was conferred her degree on November 8, 2014. Temu’s PhD thesis is titled “Regeneration, Diversity and RNA Interference Strategies to Enhance Cassava Mosaic Viruses Resistance in Tanzanian Cassava Landraces” and was carried out, also at UDSM.