DASNR
International
Student of the Week
Home Country: Kenya
Agriculture remains the most important economic activity in Kenya, although less than 8% of the land is used for crop and feed production. Less than 20% of the land is suitable for cultivation, of which only 12% is classified as high potential (adequate rainfall) agricultural land and about 8% is medium potential land. The rest of the land is arid or semiarid. About 80% of the work force engages in agriculture or food processing.
Kenya is Africa's leading tea producer, black tea is Kenya's leading agricultural foreign exchange earner. Coffee is Kenya's third leading foreign exchange earner. Horticulture has become prominent in recent years, and is now the third leading agricultural export. Fresh produce accounted for about 30% of horticultural exports, and included green beans, onions, cabbages, snow peas, avocados, mangoes, and passion fruit. Flowers exported include roses, carnations, statice, astromeria, and lilies.
Kenya is the world's largest producer and exporter of pyrethrum, a flower that contains a substance used in pesticides. The pyrethrum extract, known as pyrethrin, is derived from the flower's petals. A drop in production during the mid-1990s was due to increasing production costs, disease damage, and slow payment by the parastatal Pyrethrum Board of Kenya. The growing demand for "organic" and "natural" pesticides has increased international demand for pyrethrin, despite the existence of synthetic chemical substitutes. Kenya also produces sisal, tobacco, and bixa annatto (a natural food coloring agent) for export.” Source: Encyclopedia of Nations, Kenya Agriculture
Patrick Saisi
October 2007
|
|
DASNR International Student of the Week ...
This week’s international student of the week is Patrick Saisi. He is a PhD student in Agricultural Education. Patrick is from Kaimosi, a village in western Kenya; he speaks Luhya, his mother tongue; Kiswahali, Kenya’s National language; English (which is now the official language of Kenya) and some German. Patrick has been involved in several different organizations. He has a vast experience in community service. He was a Program Director in UN refugee camps in Tanzania, he worked with refugees from Burundi and Congo in issues related to gender, agricultural development and the environment. He also was a development specialist for the United Nations Development Program in Nairobi, Kenya. There Patrick worked for programs in the Poverty Eradication Commission of Kenya. He resigned from the UNDP in 2003 to work in an organization he founded “Community Development Services Center (CDSC)” that specializes in capacity building, information dissemination, and income-generating activities. Patrick is a facilitator and trainer of international participatory planning and sustainable development programs.
Furthermore, Patrick serves on many community development boards in Kenya including two nursery schools he initiated and that are being funded by the Wesley United Methodist Church in Macomb Illinois and First Christian Church in Stillwater Oklahoma, these schools help children from disadvantaged families. Patrick is also one of the founders of the Center for African Studies at OSU. Patrick spends his free time watching world news (CNN, CSPAN), reading news papers, chatting with friends, and playing soccer when possible. Patrick is the third born of a family of nine siblings; he is a family man with five kids. He grew up in a humble, large, and extended family; this along with all the struggle he had to attend elementary and high school have been his inspiration to work hard and excel in life. He taught music and Swahili for five years in an elementary school in Kenya. Then he attended a training program in Germany. Patrick came to the USA in 1990 when he was admitted to Iowa Wesleyan College to study business management. He proceeded to Western Illinois University for graduate studies in economics. Then he went back to Kenya. Years after he came back to the States for his cousin's graduation at Kansas State. At the same time Patrick’s cousin was assistant professor in Statistics at OSU, Patrick fell in love with the Master's Program in International Studies so in spring 2006 he graduated with his second master's degree from OSU. Patrick's future plans are to finish his PhD and go back to Kenya to work as development specialist in the area of poverty eradication and sustainable development. Adviser: Dr. Craig Edwards and Dr. Dwayne Cartmel
Patrick advice to students: “be strong and focus on what brought you here.”
Interview by: Sandra Rodríguez
|
