FROM RODENT RESEARCH PROJECT (RRP) TO SUA INSTITUTE OF PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM): A PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION AND EXCELLENCE
The story of transformation from a tiny Belgian Government supported research project on “Rodents as disease carriers and crop destroyers” between 1986-1989 that led to formation of the “Rodent Research Project” in 1990, “SUA Pest Management Centre” in 2000 and now “Institute of Pest Management” in 2021 is one of the most impressive academic developments both in terms of outputs and excellence at Sokoine University of Agriculture. The Rodent Research Project which was under the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology in the then Faculty of Veterinary Medicine was in a real sense a minute establishment within the university structure, with only two national academic staff (Prof. Bukheti Kilonzo and Rhodes Makundi) and essentially, one expatriate staff (Prof. Walter Verheyen). However from the very humble beginning, the RRP had already established firm research collaboration links with Belgian, Danish and Italian scientists. These links resulted to major scientific outputs in terms of published articles in international peer reviewed journals. In 1992, the RRP (under its first Coordinator Prof. Robert Machang’u) organized the First Workshop on Economic importance and control of rodents in Tanzania at SUA , Morogoro, 6-8 July 1992. . That workshop was really important, I think, because it was there that Robert Machang’u and Herwig Leirs started discussing and decided it was time to forget the still lingering conflict between the former Belgian and Tanzanian project coordinators, and that the two (Herwig and Robert) were going to write the first European project proposal on “Rodent biology and Integrated Pest Management in Agriculture and Public Health in East Africa“ which was granted under the EU-STD3 program, and which ran from 1994-1996. Partners in this project were from Belgium, Tanzania (RCC, TPRI), Ethiopia, Denmark and Norway. It was also during that project that Belgian master students started coming to SUA. This project was the real kick-off for the international position of SUAPMC.
It wasn’t surprising that in 1996, the RRP hosted the first Conference on “Rodent Biology and Integrated Pest Management in Africa” (21-25th October 1996) at Sokoine University of Agriculture. The proceedings of this conference were published in Formatted: Line spacing: 1.5 lines
the Belgian Journal of Zoology Vol. 127 (suppl) in October 1997, which by itself was a major achievement. This was a true testimony of an evolving strong research on rodents in Tanzania and a good opening for the RRP to the international rodent research community. The good achievements in research convinced the SUA Management that the RRP should transform into a SUA Pest Management Centre (SPMC). This was achieved in 2000.
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