Dr. John Griffis, professor in the Department of Ecology and Environmental Studies, is traveling in May to the Republic of Malawi in Southeastern Africa as the first volunteer expert in this funding cycle for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter Farmer-to-Farmer Program.

Dr. Griffis has completed about 35 overseas projects since his first volunteer experience in Zimbabwe in1995. This will be his third visit to Malawi and fourth project there, including one he conducted online during the COVID-19 crisis.

The Farmer-to-Farmer Program is unique because it connects the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with USAID to bring a wide variety of agricultural knowledge to individuals and organizations in about 40 developing countries on a 5-year cycle that corresponds with the US Farm Bill.

The program uses several non-governmental organizations to recruit volunteer experts and specialists from the US, who travel to the selected countries to conduct various training projects from growing crops to pest management to business management and marketing to post-harvest technology.

This project involves training individuals in producing seed potatoes in a sterile plant tissue culture laboratory environment for distribution to farmers in Malawi.

“Producing clean seed potatoes in the country will help local farmers greatly reduce the production costs associated with growing potatoes,” said Dr. Griffis.

Dr. Griffis helped set up this laboratory several years ago where the first task was to produce sterile bananas in response to Malawi’s severe virus issues with the local banana crop.

“My work on this training project helps introduce FGCU and the academic program to an overseas audience. For this particular project, I’ll also be making several plant tissue culture presentations at LUANAR (Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources) and there is a potential for students from Malawi to consider our graduate degree programs. USAID also promotes this program heavily, so it is likely that FGCU will be included in online information about this project,” added Dr. Griffis. 

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