Harvesting knowledge

African students at the Sino-Africa Science and Technology Backyard program gain hands-on experience to improve farming practices for African smallholder farmers.

Like a farmer, Aline woke up early, around 6 am, every day at her experimental station in Quzhou county, Handan, North China's Hebei province, beginning her busy day with various farming tasks.

Aline's full name is Roukiatou Aline Beniwende Pamtaba. A 26-year-old from Burkina Faso, a western African country, she began her graduate studies at the College of Resources and Environmental Sciences at China Agricultural University (CAU) in Beijing in September last year.

Majoring in resource utilization and plant protection, she is currently conducting research in experimental fields in rural areas of Quzhou, about 350 kilometers southwest of downtown Beijing, under the Science and Technology Backyard (STB) program.

The program, launched in 2009 by CAU, involves teachers and students participating in agricultural production in rural areas. It aims to address practical agricultural problems, develop high-level agricultural talent, and contribute to rural modernization.

In 2019, the university initiated the Sino-Africa STB project in Quzhou to train young technical talent for African nations, focusing on production issues faced by smallholder farmers, according to Jiao Xiaoqiang, an associate professor at CAU and head of the project.

So far, the project has trained more than 90 graduate students from 12 African countries, establishing a practical talent training mechanism tailored to the agricultural development needs of Africa, Jiao noted.

Aline arrived in Quzhou in February and has since been living and conducting experiments in the county.