By Alecia Evans

The Borlaug Summer Institute is hosted by Purdue University’s Center for Global Food Security. The institute embodies the true meaning of an interdisciplinary approach in addressing many life threatening issues relating global food security. Participating in the two-week program provided me the opportunity to network, interact and learn from graduate students from around the world who are practitioners from various disciplines and universities across the USA.

As a PhD student in Agricultural Economics at Purdue, my research interest surrounds post-harvest loss issues in my home country of Jamaica. I applied to the Borlaug Summer Institute with the expectation that it would somewhat fill my knowledge gap on food security. But the 13 days I spent with other like-minded graduate students far exceeded my expectations. If ever I doubted my career choice and my specific interest, the well-selected topics that were emphasized during the institute and the calibre of researchers that were chosen to lead us empowered and renewed my zeal to focus my research on doing my part in enhancing food security on a global level.

However, the most important part for me, was the knowledge-sharing that was encouraged among the 40 institute participants. Despite being from different nations, different universities and different disciplines, we all have a common goal: to find out what can we do to help end world hunger.

The sessions and our informal interactions reiterated that our best impact will come from our combined effort because the challenges to food security are complicated and transcend our individual disciplinary boundaries. I think we all left with the African proverb, shared by our Rwandan colleague, resounding in our ears, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

The author is a PhD student specializing in energy, resources and environmental economics at Purdue. Her disertation will focus on “The Impact of Access to Credit on Post-harvest Decisions.” Her research will take place in her native country of Jamaica.

Share this Story