Capacity Building in Agriculture: A Model Program in Uganda.

Iowa State University (ISU), through its Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, has been engaged in human and institutional capacity building in Uganda for the past 12 years. Our focus has been on partnering with educational institutions at grade school, high school, and college levels to promote opportunities and successes for those dependent upon agricultural production for food security. Our approach adheres to the fundamental livelihoods principles of being people centered, sustainable, holistic, built on partnerships, linked to local policies and institutions, dynamic and flexible, and forged on our known strengths. The program is multifaceted by design and involves a field-tested comprehensive life span approach for capacity development. It includes grade school gardens to support a lunch program, a high school entrepreneurial program, college student and staff exchanges, intercultural study abroad, nutrition education centers for infants and nursing mothers, and farmer extension education. In partnership with ISU Agronomy Department and the College of Agriculture at Makerere University, a Center of Excellence in Plant Breeding has been established recently to build local capacity for crop improvement in Sub-Saharan Africa. We will outline our model for building agricultural capacity of students, their instructors, and their institutions from the rural grade school, though local small businesses, to a regional plant breeding center.