Our Purpose

The Importance of In-Field Training
by Lincoln Thomas, Former BTF Intern

According to The World Resources Institute’s 2019 report Creating a Sustainable Food Future, to feed the anticipated population in 2050 we need to increase global food production by more than 50% and do this using fewer resources. To overcome this tremendous challenge, not only do we need to identify excellent solutions, but strategically implement these solutions at scale and do so with terrific speed.

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In the 2019 article The Role of Higher Education in the Development of Agriculture, Kőmíves and colleagues emphasize that as agricultural technologies develop there needs to be parallel improvements in agricultural higher education, ongoing education of farmers, and better integration between the research and the farmer to ensure real-world impact. For today’s agricultural scientists, the rapid advancements of many technologies (such as genomics, precision phenotyping and "big-data") are so exciting that it can be easy to lose sight of the foundational role of in-field activities. Not only is the field where the crop is grown (i.e., the “real world”), but the relevance and utility of many powerful technologies are directly dependent on the quality of the field data. Thus, strategic, representative, and accurate field trials are as critical today as when Dr. Borlaug sparked the Green Revolution. 

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Four years prior to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, Dr. Borlaug was leading wheat research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) where he stressed the importance of in-field training. “Dr. Borlaug used to say, ‘The most effective plant breeders are the ones that know how to talk to the plants’” said Dr. Rollie Sears, former Treasurer of the Borlaug Training Foundation (BTF) and wheat breeder, “You’ve got to be able to tell when a plant is happy, when a plant is sad, what’s wrong with a plant – and most importantly how to fix the problems. Supporting in-field training is the focus of the BTF and fills a critical gap in many university programs.”

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Dr. Fred Cholick, former President of the Borlaug Training Foundation and wheat breeder, says, “In-field training builds a bridge between knowledge from the classroom to realize the impact in farmers’ fields. When the innovative [semi-dwarf] technology developed by Dr. Borlaug was being tested in India and Pakistan, it failed,” said Fred. “It failed because the scientists were planting the wheat very deep. These semi-dwarf wheat varieties were bred with small coleoptiles, which basically meant that their initial growing point could not reach the soil surface when planted at the traditional depth. Dr. Borlaug started a training program in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, almost 60 years ago to give the national scientists and researchers in various countries field-oriented, science-based training so they could adequately relay the production practices to local farmers – thus saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Dr. Borlaug called it getting your hands dirty, but he was training people on how to take the practical knowledge and apply it to the field.”

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The Borlaug Training Foundation is striving to promote and support high-quality in-field training, such as in CIMMYT’s Basic Wheat Improvement Course (BWIC). Batiseba Tembo, Senior Agricultural Research Officer at the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI) and a 2019 CIMMYT BWIC Trainee, says, “For me, learning is about being in the classroom and in the field. What I learn in the classroom I can then go to the field and see in person. When you see science in the field, whether it’s selections or diseases, you won’t quickly forget it. Studying in the field has helped me so much.”

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The Borlaug Training Foundation was established in 2014 with the mission to “develop plant scientists who fight hunger.” There is much work to be done. How will you be part of the solution?