Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Highlights 52, Hephzibah Onyeje Obekpa, September 2019.

Brownbag seminars are organized and sponsored by the Graduate Students’ Organization at the department of Agricultural Food and Resource Economics (AFRE), Michigan State University (MSU). At MSU, brownbag seminars are held every Tuesday for a duration of 1 hour, ten minutes at the department of AFRE. During one of our College Board meetings at my home institution, I shared the idea behind brownbag seminars and what I had learnt from them. Staff members on the board bought the idea and this helped us to introduce brown bag at our College, an idea conceived during my spring semester tenure at Michigan State University. The seminar is also called “brownbags” at my home institution.

What is a brownbag? It is an informal seminar to help graduate students get valuable feedback from their professors and colleagues while enjoying snacks from their brown bags. In addition, it helps reduce errors and adds value to their research output before presentations at the College level. Having discussed the importance and benefits, the board members went unhesitatingly to implement brownbag.

Brownbag seminars are scheduled to hold every Monday between noon and 1pm. at Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi. Emails announcing the seminar are sent to lecturers and students. The first brownbag seminar kicked off on June 3, 2019 with two presenters: Kusa Yusuf (a Ph.D student) and Jenny Essein (an M.Sc student). This first brownbag seminar had about 25 persons in attendance (9 females and 16 males). The second brownbag seminar held on June 10, 2019 while the third held on June 17, 2019. These three brownbag seminars were anchored by me during my summer break from MSU. It’s a delight to know that even after I had returned to MSU for the fall semester, another brown bag held on August 26, 2019.

The brownbag seminar is an initiative that has come to stay in the college of Agricultural Economics and Extension. It is currently being coordinated by two graduate students: Mr Ali Ayuba (a Ph.D student) and Mr Godwin Ivom (an M.Sc student).

Brownbag seminars at the college of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi is another example of how the impact of the scholar’s program trickles down to others. Below are pictures from some of the previous brownbag seminars held at the college.