MSU works to improve Asian crops

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MSU is leading the way in an effort to increase crop security in three countries of Central Asia struggling to sustain their agricultural lifestyles.

Researchers from MSU and University of California-Davis are working with researchers and students from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to create more environmentally safe methods of pest management in those countries. The project started in 2005 and will continue after receiving a $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said Karim Maredia, an MSU entomology professor.

Maredia is director of the Central Asia Regional Integrated Pest Management Program and oversees the project.

He said the countries need assistance because they depend on agriculture, but lack the technology to efficiently and safely grow their most important crops after being separated from the world while part of the former Soviet Union.

“Through the project, we are breaking their isolation and reconnecting them to the world so they can access new knowledge,” Maredia said.

In the project’s early stage, MSU worked with postdoctoral professors from Central Asia in researching Integrated Pest Management, or IPM. Now, along with UC-Davis, MSU is bringing in graduate students from each of the three countries to study and conduct research.

Teaching new methods of pest management to the people of Central Asia is important for the recovery of the region’s agriculture, Maredia said.

“The main goal is to build a capacity in the region to implement ecological and environmentally friendly programs by training local scientists and graduate students,” he said.

Doug Landis, an MSU entomology professor who will work with the Central Asia graduate students, said the project aims to show Central Asian farmers various pest control methods without using harmful pesticides.

“What we are doing is trying to train educators and ultimately farmers in Central Asia how landscape structures influence their agricultural productivity and their pest control needs,” Landis said.

By surrounding their fields with a landscape that supports predators of the insects that destroy crops, farmers can successfully control these insects without using pesticides, Landis said. He said the USAID grant was essential to the research.

Landis’ wife, Joy, said she set up a Web site and blog about the project to spread information. Joy is the communication manager for MSU’s IPM program.

“The goal of the blog is to help people understand what science at MSU can do around the world,” she said.

“MSU can be about preparing people with an education so that they can help the globe with problems like these.”

Maredia said seven MSU faculty members are involved in the project, which is expected to last five more years.

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