Center for Communicating Science (CCS) faculty are used to helping others develop their communication skills. But we’re always ready to learn, too, and CCS director Patty Raun is still processing all that she encountered on a recent trip to Kenya.

    One example of the complexity of research communication in Kenya, Raun said, is that the country is made up of 47 different tribes, each with its own language or dialect.  Although the two official languages of the country are Swahili and English, many farmers in rural areas primarily speak their village language. This can lead to complicated communication issues between agriculture researchers and those who would most benefit from their work. Fortunately, these obstacles are leading Kenyan researchers to the development of new technological approaches and to refining their basic human communication tools.

CCS director Patty Raun traveled to Kenya in May to work with early career agricultural researchers. Photo courtesy of Patty Raun.

This photo shows two young Black men and a white woman all looking at the camera and smiling.
CCS director Patty Raun traveled to Kenya in May to work with early career agricultural researchers. Photo courtesy of Patty Raun.

    Raun traveled to Kenya in May to facilitate the final portion of a communicating science series for 21 early career agricultural researchers. The trip was the culmination of a collaborative team project that included Dickson Otieno and Tom Thompson of CALS Global in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and colleagues from Egerton University in Kenya. The two weeks in Kenya followed a series of online workshops that began in February and were designed and facilitated by Raun and Otieno to prepare participants for the in-person sessions held May 6-10.

    “I believe the researchers that we worked with throughout the spring valued the skills they developed and the collaborative learning journey that we undertook together,” said Raun. “I know I prize the perspective that my interactions with all of the APECS participants brought me. They generously and patiently helped me see the Kenyan agriculture system through their eyes. I understand issues around global agriculture and communicating research in completely new ways.”

This photo shows a vast expanse of valley, mountains, and blue sky with puffy white clouds. It is the Rift Valley of Africa.
Raun captured some of the beauty of her surroundings — here the Rift Valley — during her May 2024 trip to Kenya. Photo by Patricia Raun for Virginia Tech.

    The program, the Agricultural Productivity Enhancement & Communicating Science Project (or APECS), grew from meetings with delegations from East African countries who visited CALS Global faculty and also met with Raun in 2022 and 2023. Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service, the workshop series launched with a panel discussion held online February 16. The panel presentation, titled "Closing the gaps in agricultural research dissemination through effective science communication: Insights from East Africa and the United States," drew an online audience of hundreds of people.

    The final component of the spring semester training series was the APECS Science Communication Case Competition, at which teams of participants presented their research to a panel of judges. The winning team will travel to the United States to attend the 2024 Global Agricultural Productivity Report launch in October, Raun said.

    Raun looks forward to welcoming the members of the winning team, Livondo Luhaz, Bwema Ombati, and Virginia Wanjiku, to campus in October.

This image says "APECS TEAM 3" and has three inset circular photos, each showing one of the winners: Livondo Luhaz, Virginia Wanjiku, and Bwema Ombati.
Teams of early career agricultural researchers participated in a presentation competition as part of the APECS program. The winning team is shown here.

    “I hope to work collaboratively with all of the participants in the future,” Raun said, “and I hope the network of all 21 participants in the APECS 2024 will stay strong. I wish all of them were coming to the U.S. because they each have something unique to offer the world!”

    The overall project goal, according to the collaborators, was to enhance communicating science culture and practice in Kenya, and by extension Africa, as a response to the emerging science communication needs of the continent. Participants and project leaders alike were able to gain an understanding of the perspectives of agricultural researchers around communicating science in East Africa. In Africa, as elsewhere around the globe, science communication dynamics influence translating science to policy and also impact the adoption of agricultural technology. With Raun as facilitator, the project workshops introduced the models of experiential learning used by the CCS and allowed the sharing of lessons and perspectives between Kenya and the United States.

    “I had some anxiety about how the arts-based work might be received on another continent,” said Raun, “but my new friends and colleagues jumped right in. They embraced the approach I brought to the in-person workshops with real joy! They each grew so much because of what they put into the work.”