South Africa is a fertile land, so how is it that we have to date been unable to effectively feed our people? According to Mr Shaun Berry of BASF-Becker Underwood, a company involved in a joint research grant partnership with the University of Pretoria and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), not enough research is currently being done to develop new technology for South African farmers.
 

To help mitigate this situation, the company awarded an amount of $200 000 over four years, starting in 2013, to support research grant projects involving students in agricultural sciences at UP. The grants awarded are helping to develop a network of qualified staff for agricultural product registrations.

At the launch of the programme in 2013, Daniel Krohn, global sustainability leader for Becker Underwood, said, ‘We spent almost a year looking at investment opportunities in the educational systems located in the communities in which we operate and identified an opportunity to partner with the University of Pretoria to address a skills shortage in the South African agricultural market. We feel that our investment will produce a younger generation of educated, research-driven leaders in agriculture, which is essential to the country’s competitiveness globally.’

The programme was initiated by Becker Underwood, which has since been acquired by BASF, a chemical company whose portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance products and crop protection products to oil and gas. The joint research grant programme has, however, by no means been affected and still forms part of the company’s Sustainable Ventures Initiative – a programme aimed at investing resources in sustainable development opportunities.

At a recent event organised by the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well-being, some of the students who are benefitting from the grant programme had the opportunity to give representatives from Becker Underwood, BASF and DAFF an update on the progress made with their research projects. The projects that are being pursued include the following:

• Ms Makgolane, an MSc Plant Pathology student at UP, is investigating the combined use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and fungicides using wheat and fusarium root rot as a model system.
• Ms Motileng, who is currently busy with an MSc in Entomology, is evaluating the possible use of botanical essential oils for the management of the maize weevil and the larger grain borer.
• Mr Mutengwe, a PhD student in Crop Protection, is doing a risk analysis of maximum residue limits for fresh fruits and leafy vegetables in the local fresh-produce and retail markets in South Africa.
• Ms Mahlangu is pursuing her MSc in Veterinary Sciences by screening South African plants for activities against salmonellosis.

The students are all conducting valuable research in the fields of agriculture and nutrition – and some of them are doing this despite great financial difficulty. To document the progress of the programme, the company also produced a video, ‘Getting there, Social Ventures Program’, containing interviews conducted in their hometowns with some of the participating students and their families.

Peter Innes, who was the CEO of Becker Underwood when the project was launched, remarked at the time: ‘We have a wonderful opportunity to develop talent that will have a positive impact in South Africa through participation in our joint programme. We have an opportunity to show the world that partnerships like ours with the University of Pretoria and DAFF are possible and can deliver positive results, to the benefit of a broad constituency.’

If the quality of the research undertaken by the UP students who are part of this programme is any indication of the quality of professionals we can expect to have in the South African agricultural sector in the future, we can look forward to seeing some real progress in this area.

According to Prof Lise Korsten, programme organiser for the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well-being, the University plans to expand on these partnerships to ensure that government has adequate competent staff to support a viable and strong agricultural sector. A new capacity-building programme for sanitary and phytosanitary services is also being developed and a laboratory accreditation programme for academics has recently been launched at the University of Pretoria.