No pausing for the pandemic – e-mentoring for inclusive, equitable agriculture
September 25, 2021
As a Partner in the Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation (GFAR), we were very pleased to have our e-mentoring program highlighted in the September edition of the GFAR Partners in Action Campaign. GFAR’s blog can be found here.
GFAR is a network of diverse stakeholders working to improve agri-food research and innovation for greater development impact. The network has over 600 partners around the world working at local, national, regional or international levels and other Australian partners include ACIAR, Australian Landcare International and Nuffield International. The Partners in Action campaign has published over 21 campaigns blogs and #GFARinAction has reached over 460,000 people on Twitter alone.
With our inaugural e-mentoring program coming to a close, and with the Fund about to call for a second round of e-mentors and e-mentees, it was a great opportunity to reach GFAR’s broad network in our search for a new group of e-mentees – agricultural researchers, scientists and policy makers in developing countries – who would benefit from Australians to work with them to help develop their technical and organisational skills and expertise.
As noted in the GFAR blog, the focus of the mentoring ranged from management through to very technical research skills. Examples of topics covered included science communication, project proposal writing, research leadership and management, interdisciplinary gender research, genetic resources, scaling up innovation, international research collaboration, soil and microbe interactions, climate-smart agriculture, agricultural extension, irrigation technology, agricultural economics, experimental design, food safety, post-harvest product storage, plant breeding, labor-saving agronomic systems, market and value chain analysis and socio economics in agricultural research.
A big thank you to GFAR for spreading the word of our e-mentoring program and stay tuned for the announcement of the next round for the program.
