Emanuel Atser is Special Adviser to the Governor of Benue State for Agriculture and Food Security and also responsible for the Benue Swine production improvement project. He spent two weeks in Ames with ISU Extension subject matter experts who have been working on this project since 2008: Jim McKean, Mary Holz-Clause, Glen Easter, and Kelvin Leibold. Atser’s meeting and discussion with the team included timelines and benchmarks for crop and swine production, building construction as it relates to new pig arrival and swine team training as well as development of strategies to obtain private and federal funds for the project.
Atser’s training included an introduction to large scale farming practices in Iowa using large scale equipment and small scale equipment that is applicable to village farming. He saw how grain is handled and stored at Sukup Manufacturing and he also met and toured with the management staff of West Central Coop at Ralston, Iowa.
Discussions with Atser focused largely on the swine training, and of utmost importance is bio-security for building plans. Other concerns include the need for a consistent supply of portable water and feed for the swine operation, feed mixing and delivery systems. Atser visited a farm with a grinder-mixer in use and a boar stud collection center.
A meeting with the ISU Meats director was also set up for future training needs for pork processing. Atser had the opportunity to tour and visit a pork processing plant specializing in fresh and sausage products.
Other meetings at ISU included visits with Mark Honeyman, Director of the Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Ag Engineering Farm west of Ames, Joe Cortes, ISU Coordinator for the Western African Seed Association (WASA), and Glen Rippke, ISU Seed Science. Additional time was spent in discussion with the ISU Global Extension Swine Team working on building plans to house the breeding stock scheduled to arrive Spring of 2010 and establishing a timeline for getting the project up and running in Benue State.
Please contact Sok-Leng Tan at sokleng@iastate.edu if you need more information or have any questions about the project.