The workshop was notable for reasons other than simply having the inventor of the QuEChERS method present. Where people are used to having a presenter speak using only PowerPoint, this workshop was also hands-on. Participants were divided into teams of people who do not normally work together. This proved to be one of the best ideas of the workshop: Participants made connections with their peers from other countries. “I didn’t think the chemists would be that thrilled about networking, but they really were,” said Cobb. “Beyond my wildest dreams the networking happened.”

The best testimony came from the participants themselves. Said Ibrahim Anikoh, a chemist from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control in Nigeria: “I am impressed that something like this is taking place. With this, we have started something.”

Quality assurance workshops for pesticide safety educators and pesticide residue chemists are part of the USAID-funded West Africa Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) Regional Consortium of IPM Excellence. This project is developing regional IPM programs in five West African countries: Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal. For this event, additional funding for Lehotay’s travel and for chemists from West Africa was provided by USDA-FAS and the FAO.

Halimatou, for her part, is confident that benefits from this workshop will continue to play out. “The proof is that already here in Mali we have held a project on fruits and vegetables where the analytical method of choice was QuEChERS,” she said.

And the pesticide dealers? A farmer at the local agricultural technology implementation center (like a farmers’ club) said, “One has already gone out of business this past summer!”

Because the eggplant grafting program has been so successful, BARI, with IPM CRSP support, conducts training sessions in eggplant grafting at its headquarters outside the capital city of Dhaka several times a year. At these sessions, extension workers learn the technique so that they can take it back to their communities. They hope that they, too, will have the same kind of success as the villagers in Gaidghat.

In Gaidghat, 100 percent of the children go to school. Health problems are down. And the farmers’ cooperative has become something of a media attraction.

Eggplant grafting has not solved all of the farmers’ problems. But Karim is optimistic. “Change happens slowly, but once it happens, it goes on and on.”

            Go to page       1         2