Bloomington Ill. – Darci Webber, Natural Resources, Environment, and Energy Educator for McLean, Livingston, and Woodford Counties, recently returned from a trip to Sri Lanka with the University of Illinois College of ACES Global Academy. Together, nine professionals from the University of Illinois traveled to meet with education and outreach professionals in Sri Lanka to promote academic engagement with a global mindset.
What is Global Academy?
Each year, Global Academy forms a cohort of campus professors and Extension professionals, creating a cross-departmental team to deepen collaboration, develop partnerships with researchers and institutions abroad, and provide an international immersion experience to strengthen strategic partners.
This 10-day trip included visits to the University of Colombo along with their Agro-technology and Rural Sciences campus, the University of Peradeniya, the International Water Management Institute, HARTI, and many other local organizations.
What did you learn from meeting with the Universities?
“It was a neat experience learning what environmental issues occur in Sri Lanka compared to the challenges in the United States. Each of our meetings was a learning experience as professors, researchers, and local experts shared insights on their fields of study and local environmental viewpoints. When they shared, there was an overall emphasis on climate change, and I was particularly interested in conversations about water management. Multiple organizations noted needing nature-based solutions to best care for their local systems. At times, parts of the country experience flooding, which heavily impacts their agriculture fields, harvests, and outputs. These water issues also intersect with gender concerns. Kidney health concerns in women due to polluted water are impacting geographical communities of women, and a lack of sanitary restrooms in schools for females are areas of concern. With these issues, research on mental health and stress related to water issues are being studied.
Does Sri Lanka have an Extension?
Yes, Sri Lanka has an Extension, but it works differently than ours at University of Illinois. Extension in Sri Lanka falls under the Department of Agriculture, so it’s constructed nationwide rather than at the state level. At the University of Peradeniya, we met with professors who teach students studying to go into Extension work. There is a whole degree path to prepare students for Extension work, and we were able to hang out with a few of those students. Extension in Sri Lanka also mainly only focuses on agriculture. In their model, they do capacity building through teaching and have extension offices throughout the country working with farmers. However, there are many vacancies for field officers, so one worker may be over 2,000 farmers. There are many agricultural gaps where Extension doesn’t currently reach everyone.
Similar to our Extension, they also have researchers. In Sri Lanka, a few of their research topics include how much water is truly needed for rice cultivation and the practicality of integrating fish farming into rice fields. They also have a leading lab in banana tissue culture. When new research is ready to be shared, it’s written in the local language and shared with farmers.
What surprised you the most about your experience in Sri Lanka?
While we asked many questions to better understand their environment and education systems, they also asked us if we had any insights on how to manage monkeys and peacocks. Both have become pests that harm crops, but due to their religious beliefs, they do not want to harm animals. Their goals are only to better control where the animals are going or to adapt to better manage them. Monkeys and peacocks are not pests we have here, so we didn’t have much information to share. They also asked us about the use of AI, though, and as a team led by Laren Karplus, we presented AI usage to professors while we were there.
What was your favorite part of the trip?
It was a full experience with long days and many moving parts. Lauren did an excellent job organizing everything, and there were many highlights. I never really know what I’m getting myself into, but I enjoy embracing the adventure. One of the neat parts for me was when we visited a few field sites with the University of Colombo. It was very neat to see student projects out in the field and to see the banana plantations. We also toured a site where they are researching tea production and using UV light to enhance the color of pink and purple teas. A smaller group of us went on a day hike that turned into a mini agro-forestry tour. Then we spent some time as a group doing the typical tourist stops such as visiting an elephant safari, watching a cultural dance show, touring a tea factory, and visiting a UNESCO Heritage Site.
How has this experience impacted your perspective, or how will this experience further support your work?
I am very grateful for the opportunity to be in the 2024-2025 Global Academy cohort to Sri Lanka. I have lived overseas before but had not previously experienced Asian culture like this. Personally, it was a fun experience to ride in a Tuk-tuk, eating rice and buffets of different curries, and very neat to see the different natural habitats for wildlife. I always enjoy traveling to see diverse cultures and to experience new pockets of the world. In my work, I like to engage in content that reflects how other countries are working towards sustainability and conservation efforts. There is so much we can learn from one another in how to manage resources, ideas for policies, and ways to mitigate our impact on the environment. Professionally, it is refreshing to hear these different perspectives and to remember we are not alone in trying to care for our world. Not only was it beneficial to meet so many great minds in Sri Lanka, but I also benefited from meeting on-campus staff. Relationships between campus and Extension can be hard to initiate because we are such a large institution, even in our college of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, but it was neat to get to know the other members of the cohort, to hear from their expertise, listen to what research they are focusing on, and get to know one another as individuals.