"And there is much room for improvement, according to Richelle Matthews, an associate with the Praxis Strategy Group, whose initiatives include working with farmers in Ghana. Many farmers in Africa’s underdeveloped parts unknowingly undermine their own productivity by using the wrong pesticides or fertilizers, for example, or by relying on outdated methods of planting and growing. Developing better farming practices and teaching them to farmers would help, she explains.

“There are all types of information deficits and capacity deficits, so that farmers either don’t have the types of relevant information to make decisions or they don’t have skills with which to increase efficiencies,” Matthews says.

Matthews is concerned, however, that even the African countries that have increased their funding might not be able to sustain them in the long term. In most of the countries, substantial sums of the funding for R&D comes from outside investors and donors, she says. The governments will have to make much larger increases in their commitments in years to come, or else many projects could collapse once the donor funds cease.

Often what happens is that donor agencies come along [with] some funding, and it goes to funding streams,” says Matthews. “You end up with a lot of projects that fail once the donor agency leaves.”

Download the attached .pdf at the link below to read the full article.

The piece ran in the April 26th edition of the Wall Street Journal.

 The report was also featured on RealClearPolicy.com, as sister site of RealClearPolitics.

We're organizing the Red River Valley Research Corridor's  Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Action Summit 2012 May 22-23 at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. This is the 6^th UAS Summit since 2006 and the 22 Action Summit the Research Corridor has hosted since 2004.

Our Action Summits are organized to create new technology partnerships for businesses and universities and build new trade linkages for regional economies.

This year’s UAS Summit, “From Battle Field to Farm Field” will examine an entire spectrum of important measures our nation and the industry must consider and prepare to meet the ongoing use and growth of unmanned, or remotely piloted, systems within the national airspace. The UAS industry is rapidly changing with focus shifting from military to commercial and civil applications. This UAS Action Summit will provide a forum and continue to generate linkages and connections between partners in industry, university, military, and government sectors. 

Find out more about the 2012 UAS Action Summit .