Stay Up to Date on All Things SIL with the May 2018 Newsletter! 

 

Access the newsletter here. 

SIL's May 2018 Newsletter features the following articles:

• May 9th - Focus Groups 101: Brief Guide to Conducting Focus Groups in Village Settings Webinar - SIL Socioeconomic and Gender Equity Research Team leaders Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale and Dr. Mary Read-Wahidi (with the Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center) hosted a webinar on focus groups on May 9th. The webinar was designed for non-social scientists who would like to use focus groups to better inform program planning, evaluation, needs assessments, gathering staff input, advocacy or change management. Drs. Ragsdale and Read-Wahidi drew from real-world experiences from SIL conducting focus groups among men and women smallholder soybean farmers in Ghanaian villages.
• Soy Food Entrepreneur Network Resource: Reducing the Beany Flavor in Soy Milk - Frank Peget, facility manager at the EnSoy Dairy at the CSIR Food Research Institute in Accra, Ghana (and member of SIL’s Soy Food Entrepreneur Network), developed a simple method to significantly reduce the beany flavor in soymilk.
• SIL Director Discusses SIL on Illinois Farm Bureau's RFD Radio Network - SIL Director Peter Goldsmith spoke with Nick McClintock of Illinois Farm Bureau's RFD Radio Network to discuss all things SIL - how the lab was started, what the purpose of SIL's work is and how SIL's innovations have lasting impacts for smallholder soybean farmers.
• SIL's Complementary Food Webinar Featured on Agrilinks! - Agrilinks, the Feed the Future knowledge-sharing platform, featured SIL’s webinar on Complementary Food for Africa (ComFA) recently as part of their continued coverage of agricultural development to alleviate poverty and malnutrition.
• SIL Research on Tropical Soybean Published in the International Journal of Agricultural Management - A recent article published by SIL Director Peter Goldsmith in the Journal of Agricultural Management provides guidance for policymakers, producers, and those in the agribusiness industry seeking to expand agricultural production in tropical settings like Sub-Saharan Africa.  
• Collaborator Corner: Sheunesu Mpepereki - SIL is launching a new series for our monthly newsletters – the Collaborator Corner! Each month a new collaborator will be featured who is helping to develop innovations and technologies to improve soybean production and utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
• What Does SIL Look Like? Check Out Our Flickr Albums! - Interested in seeing SIL's research-for-development programs in action? Check out the SIL Flickr account where we post images from our research-for-development programs, soybean stakeholder events, workshops, field days, and more.