Translating science research to farming communities

MY one and a half days at the 27th NOMCAARRD Regional Symposium on Research and Development was a fulfilling one. It took me away from daily emails and web search; perhaps from a student biting fingernails on an unfinished research proposal for which half of a month’s leave to beat a lecturer’s deadline gave up all dreams for an extended vacation back to her town in the north. Or another of her kind such as a young engineer, inquiring what extra assignment he could do to make up for the allowed one absence in a trimester, unwillingly invoked because of systems breakdown in his department which he had to help bring back to equilibrium.

The Symposium was much unlike the almost daily exchange with colleagues in my ten square feet office stacked with one might say, the documented world of internationalization attempts, some materialized, others waiting on the wings and one or two, to be simply archived as the offers are too impractical. This maiden position in a University preparing for Asean integration keeps me reaching out for links through its attached external relations role–pending files stacked for the meanwhile waiting to be labeled during a welcomed lull.