Eric Pohlman, 2015 winner of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, will speak about “Putting Farmers First” in Rwanda.
Eric Pohlman, 2015 winner of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, speaks Oct. 12 at Central College. His presentation, “Putting Farmers First: The One Acre Fund Case Study in East Africa,” is free and open to the public at 11 a.m. in Cox-Snow Recital Hall.
Pohlman is Rwanda country director and senior partner for the social enterprise One Acre Fund. Since 2007, he has worked in Rwanda to help subsistence farmers better afford modern agriculture technology. To that end, Pohlman helped create an innovative farm finance model that serves 100,000 farm families, as well as nearly 500 farmer agents who conduct small-group trainings. In 2016, fully ten percent of Rwanda’s population is enrolled in Pohlman’s program.
The Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation, is presented by the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines. This $10,000 award recognizes exceptional, science-based achievement in international agriculture and food production by an individual under the age of 40 who has demonstrated Borlaug-like intellectual courage, stamina and determination in the fight to eliminate global hunger and poverty.
