By Tanya Perez, Davis Enterprise

"Bumping along a dirt road, being pulled by John Deere tractors and sitting astride hay bales, an impressive group of young leaders from 19 African countries got another taste of hands-on learning.

The Mandela Washington fellows last week were visiting UC Davis’ Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility, learning about irrigated and dry-land agriculture.

Listening to Kate Scow, the academic director of the six-week program, the fellows heard about the area’s water table, inspected the surface water traveling via canal and gained an understanding of the irrigation methods used at Russell Ranch.

Scow, a UCD professor in the department of land, air and water resources, told the visitors, “There’s not a lot of irrigation on the continent now,” but that it’s a growth area in the formative stages in Africa.

And that’s why these 25 fellows are here … to learn what techniques and best practices they can take back home.

Tshegofatso Neeuwfan, a fellow from South Africa who works as a senior adviser at South Africa’s national power utility company, values the collaboration he has learned while visiting UCD and the United States.

“The most valuable thing that I will take back home is the value of networking and collaborating to solve seemingly overwhelming problems,” Neeuwfan said. “As professionals and entrepreneurs in energy (and other sectors), we tend to think of our problems as uniquely ours — not experienced or worked on by anyone else.”

Through the Mandela fellowship program, Neeuwfan has seen others who are grappling with the same issues — both in the U.S. and all over the African continent."

Read more at UC Davis News.