Sharing Experiences From The MSU Visting Scholar Program of The Feed The Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project

 

 NAPP scholar, Balaraba Sule, having a step down for the staff and students of IBB University

After spending the spring 2019 semester at Michigan State University (MSU), I wanted to share my experiences with my colleagues and students at Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) University, Lapai of Niger State, Nigeria. On August 7, 2019, I had my first chance to do just that. A seminar was organized in which I shared with the faculty, staff and students of IBB University,  my experiences as a visiting scholar of the Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project (NAPP) at Michigan State University. At the end of the seminar, a short break was observed, after which I delivered a step down presentation for students and interested staff. The step down was centered on questionnaire design which is a section of the course; Empirical Methods in Field Research in Developing Countries that I took at MSU.

 

  

Nigerian Staff and students listening to the presentation on the NAPP scholar’s experiences

During the seminar, one of several ideas that caught the imagination and interest of both staff and students is the brown bag seminar. Students were enthusiastic with the idea of having an opportunity to informally present their work right from the concept stage up to final outputs, for constructive criticism without fear of ramifications. Since the department has a very small number of graduate students, I pointed out how such seminars could be run jointly with the Economics Department considering the similarities in research approaches and methodologies that the two departments employ. The Dean, Faculty of Agriculture promised to discuss with the Head of Economics Department on the need to have joint seminar sessions and presentations.

 

 

A student taking notes during the step down by the NAPP scholar.

For the step down, questionnaire design was purposefully selected bearing in mind the fact that most of the students were through with their proposals and getting ready to go to the field.

  

 

Staff and students of the department discussing the experiences of the NAPP scholar.

At the end of the presentation, both staff and students were interested in me sharing the course material with them. I did this by uploading all files to my google drive and sharing the link with them. There were was general excitement about such a resourceful capacity building program and lots of questions on how I got to participate in it. However, the excitement turned to mass disappointment after the audience learnt that the program might be in its last lap.

By Balaraba Sule

This work is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future initiative through the Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project, Associate Cooperative Agreement Number AJD-620-LA-15-00001. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. Copyright © 2019, Michigan State University, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. All rights reserved. This material may be reproduced for personal and not-for-profit use without permission from but with acknowledgment to MSU, and IFPRI. Published by the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, Justin S. Morrill Hall of Agriculture, 446 West Circle Dr., Room 202, East Lansing, Michigan 48824.