Sadly, Borlaug LEAP will be closing its doors at UC Davis this Fall. Since the program began, 170 Borlaug LEAP Fellows have completed their fellowships. All 15 CGIARs and over 45 US universities have participated in the program.  The Fellows represent 29 different countries (97% from sub-Saharan Africa) and the majority (84%) have pursued PhD degrees.  Their thesis topics ranged from soil science to human nutrition to agricultural economics.

Author Bonphace Mangeni is a Kenyan PhD student studying Crop Protection (Plant Virology at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kakamega, Kenya.  He is a 2013 Borlaug LEAP Fellow. 

This was my first time to attend the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, USA.  I was very excited to receive the news to participate in the World Food Prize 2017 events as a delegate selected by Borlaug LEAP. It was an opportunity to meet with the powers driving global agriculture and food production.

The upcoming 2016 World Food Prize will honor contributions in the field of biofortification. With almost one person in four being undernourished in Africa, 2015 Borlaug Fellow Dr. Kassahun Kelifa Suleman explores what recent experiences tell us about the role that biofortified foods can play in ensuring nutritious and safe food for the continent.

2009 Borlaug LEAP Fellow, Dr. Eusebius Mukhwana is passionate about creating change for the better. As a veterinarian, he expressed his passion through caring for animals. As a professor, he transferred that passion to others through teaching. And now, as he pursues government work, he is taking that passion for change to the policy-makers themselves as the Deputy Commission Secretary in charge of Planning, Research and Development at the Commission for University Education (CUE) in Kenya.

2013 Borlaug LEAP Fellow Assoumane Maiga has worn many hats during his professional and academic career: English teacher and translator in his native Mali, PhD student in Agricultural Education at Oklahoma State University (OSU), and Fulbright scholar.  And now he can add winner of the Research Excellence Award in the OSU Graduate College Group V, Education category.  His dissertation, titled “An Assessment of the Media’s Role in Disseminating News and Information to Farmers After the Cessation of Armed Conflicts in the Republics of Côte d’Ivoire and Mali”, was selected out of many highly r

“I started this business with less than $40,” Borlaug LEAP fellow Millicent Yeboah-Awudzi proudly states, “and through discipline and hard work, I was able to build something that not only endures, but has provided employment for others.”

By Saul Daniel Ddumba, Brad Hounkpati, and Bernice Waweru

The notion that every person should have a right to adequate food, health and education is still far from reality in most parts of Africa. With the exception of a few other developing regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the largest percentage of hunger and malnutrition. The population in this region is increasing steadily and is likely to be among the highest populations across the world in the next three decades.

The Second Borlaug LEAP Alumni Association Roundtable Discussion was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The March conference was hosted by Addis Ababa University, the oldest and largest institution of higher education in Ethiopia.  The Deans of Agriculture from all major universities in Ethiopia attended along with representatives of USAID, the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and, of course, our Borlaug LEAP Fellows from Ethiopia.

Borlaug LEAP Fellow, Esther Nampeera was recently selected by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to participate in their 2015 Next Generation Delegation to the Global Food Security Symposium.  The program provides an opportunity for promising students to engage in symposium discussions and to interact with policy, civil society, and business leaders working on agriculture, food, and nutrition issues. This year's symposium focused on food systems for improved health.  In the following article, Ms. Nampeera reports on her experience with the 2015 Next Generation Delegation.

2007 Borlaug LEAP Fellow Dr. Emmanuel Tumusiime reflects on agricultural development interventions and the search for transformative solutions to extreme poverty.  In this article, he challenges the development community to look at how current policies are impacting small-scale farmers and reminds us that food security research must reach the poor farmers it is intended to help.