A group of nine students and two staff members from Gulu University in Uganda are on the trip of a lifetime to learn about farming practices in Australia – and what better place to see than Boorowa?
The group is in Australia thanks to a partnership between Gulu and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and has spent the last week at farms in Boorowa. Associate Professor Julian Cox from UNSW said the program came about after a number of Australian students visited Uganda last year.
“About two years, UNSW got a new Vice Chancellor, he came to us from Manchester University and he had a program in women’s health in Uganda,” Prof. Cox said.
“He developed a new strategy at UNSW... part of that was to have a more global reach to help more disadvantaged communities… one of the countries he wanted to help was Uganda so after a couple of visits to work out what we were going to do, one of the activities was a student exchange program. This is the return trip.”
The group arrived last Wednesday and has since taken part in a trip to the Ugandan High Commission in Canberra, as well as workshops and meet and greets with farmers in the Boorowa districts.
“The aim of the program is to give them some good, professional development, because of that agriculture background, we wanted to make sure they got immersed in our farming community,” Prof. Cox said.
“We’ve run a Hack-a-thon, a workshop where the students built some fences which you can use for measuring things like soil moisture, salinity, magnetic sensors where the gates open and close and then go do some basic coding and programming for the sensors.
“In terms of the farm visits, we’ve seen cattle, various sheep, and some discussion about productivity of the farms and how some people are innovating around soil improvement.
“We’ve visited Rugby Station owned by Michael, Belinda and Georgina Kelly, we’ve visited Jayne Apps who deals with super fine Merino, we’ve been out to Tom Corkhill, local agronomist and businessman as well as a wool farmer. Jan and Elizabeth Myberg have hosted us at their farm for the workshop.”
The group was also treated to dinner on Saturday night, thanks to the Rotary Club of Boorowa. Prof. Cox hopes that the trip will lead to greater ties between the two universities and the two Rotary clubs.
“The other thing, this would not have been possible without the support of the Rotary Club of Boorowa because they have really reached out to the community and the community’s been very good to us in participating in the visits,” he said.
“We are aiming to build a twinning relationship between Rotary in Boorowa and Rotary in Gulu.”
Professor Cox thanked the Boorowa community for their warm reception, with many of the students having never left Uganda before.
“Simply travelling, having never left Uganda, its been a massive adventure simply to travel this far but I think they acknowledge they’ve gained a huge amount of information but that also that inspiration to see where farming could go.”