Pamela Afokpe, recipient of the 2026 Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, Endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation, discussed her work in improving African vegetables and varieties from the seed for the Norman Borlaug Lecture at the Memorial Union Tuesday.
Afokpe is a plant breeder and product development specialist at East-West Seed International.
The lecture began with President David Cook asking questions from a list before the conversation opened up to questions from audience members.
“Her extraordinary efforts have led to increased incomes and better nutrition for tens of thousands of smallholder farmers growing these what we call opportunity crops in West Africa,” Cook said. “Traditional indigenous vegetables such as the African eggplant, amaranth and jute mallow have nourished families for generations.”
In Afokpe’s research program, she noted that the adoption of innovation and technologies takes time and can be met with resistance. Afokpe spoke of an example involving farmers’ resistance to a pale green-leafed indigenous sika eggplant.
“The market was used to dark green leaves, so we had to demonstrate to farmers the other value that specific variety had,” Afokpe said. “Which was intermediate resistance to BW [bacterial wilt], so we had to explain to farmers that the color was not focused here, but the resistance was more important for them to get better harvests.”
Afokpe reflected on challenges during the research journey, specifically in the field.
“I had no team, I had no clear roadmap and I really had limited resources, so I had to do everything from scratch,” Afokpe said. “I had to weed myself with a hoe. I had to irrigate the first plot. So when I look back at those pictures, sometimes I smile and I really like to show it. My first nursery was with a mosquito net. It was covered with a mosquito net, so it’s quite a journey.”
The final question by an audience member asked for words of wisdom to take away from the lecture.
“My favorite one is in everything you do, give it your best,” Afokpe said. “Let passion and determination guide everything you do, and I think success will flow, will come naturally. You don’t have to force it. Just be passionate and determined in everything you do. That will be my advice.”
The Norman Borlaug Lecture was preceded by a poster session and judging. Students submitted poster abstracts that related to or involved global issues like food, agriculture, climate and more.