An International Partnership Focuses on Safer Farming
There’s not very much out there on agricultural safety and health in Nigeria; it’s not even recognized as a problem. Before I came to the U.S., I felt like maybe my work wasn’t relevant… [after the Fellowship], I discovered how important the work I do is.”
Gift Udoh, 2019 Fellowship Alumna, Nigeria
Although Iowa and Nigeria are thousands of miles apart, they share common ties through agriculture. Farmers everywhere contend with volatile markets, bad weather, and occupational hazards, including exposure to pesticides.
Gift Udoh, 2019 Fellowship Alumna and a young business leader and entrepreneur from southern Nigeria, is the CEO of Norina Farms, a company she founded in 2016 that grows organic vegetables and provides agricultural resources and training to other farmers. Her passion to supply healthy food to customers and to protect the farmers who produce it stems from her own experience with chemical poisoning.
Learn more in this article from the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Government.
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Fellowship Alumni and Participants
Across Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States