Seed Systems & Agroecology
I'm an agroecologist and my research focus is on decentralized seed systems for small scale farmers. This transdisciplinary work integrates participatory processes, crop ecology, and plant breeding with gender studies. I use various methods, including field trials for varietal and agroecological questions, and mixed methods to learn with farmers and understand their needs and challenges. The overall goal is practical, applied research and engagement that generates innovative outcomes with communities. I have experience with many crops in the Global South such as legumes, vegetatively-propagated plants, and climate resilient small grains such as sorghum and fonio. I aim to practice an inclusive science, where the diverse and varied needs of all voices are heard and lead the process of engagement and learning.
Art & Science
The Falling Tree Collaborative
NSF Funded Scientists and Composer Collaboration
The Falling Tree Collaborative concert series is designed to bring the sounds of the proverbial “tree falling in a forest” to new audiences and explores themes of climate change, sustainable food production, and general wonder of our shared natural world with a special focus on systems involving plants. The performance will feature the work of four MSU plant Biologists (Kadeem Gilbert, Krista Isaacs, Phoebe Zarnetske, Berkley Walker[PI]) with contemporary music from four Michigan Composers (Libby Meyer, Lisa Coons, Lyn Goeringer, Spencer Arias). Funded by NSF.
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Seeds of Resistance
Broad Art Museum
"The protection of our planet’s biodiversity is one of the most pressing concerns facing human society today. Seeds of Resistance responds to these growing concerns by drawing attention to the long history of plant and human co-evolution and interdependence." Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and curated by Steven L. Bridges, Associate Curator
Photo: Eat Pomegranate Photography
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Isaacs discusses the work of Beatriz Cortez and its dual nature: how the artist simultaneously looks ahead to the future, while preserving ancient and traditional knowledge of the Americas through the collection of seeds contained in her sculpture.
-MSU Broad Art Museum |
Research areas
Seed security and women's empowerment through decentralized seed production in Uttar Pradesh, India
This research was conducted in Uttar Pradesh, India to understand how training women from self-help groups in seed production changed the access to, the availability of, and the quality of rice and wheat seed in rural communities. We used in-depth interviews to understand these changes in seed security and to learn how the i knowledge gained from seed production, and the distribution of seed in their local networks, changed household dynamics and their self-efficacy. This research was conducted in collaboration with the NGO RGMVP, Dr. Walter de Boef, and myself. M.S. graduate student Arena Lewis is wrapping up some of the analysis.
Smallholder farmer sorghum seed quality equal to commercial seed
We collected sorghum seed from over 200 farmers across Mali, from agro-dealers, and farmer cooperatives. We also had facilitated conversations with seed growing cooperatives to understand how they think about seed quality. To no surprise, evidence indicates farmers have excellent quality seed. This research was conducted together with plant breeder Dr. Chiaka Diallo.
Photo by Mamourou Sidibé
Crop Improvement & Gender AnalysisAs a gender post-doc in the CGIAR Research Programs Dryland Cereals and Grain Legumes, I examined the historical processes of participatory plant breeding (PPB), with a gender perspective, for cereal and legume crops. The goal was to learn how different breeding programs have used PPB, how men and women have been involved, and how we can build and adapt these processes to improve breeding outcomes across research centers (ICRISAT, ICARDA, IITA, and CIAT).
The work spans across several research programs, institutions, and crops within the CGIAR system to strengthen our understanding of the effective and challenging components of gender and breeding in Africa and beyond in order to develop context-specific and gender sensitive, harmonized strategies for crop improvement. Participatory Research in MaliThe first year of my post-doc at ICRISAT-MALI was with the Dryland Cereals Sorghum Program. My research focused on seed systems, participatory on-farm trials, and understanding farmers' preferences about sorghum plant types. Knowing these preferences allows breeders to develop varieties that are more appropriate and suitable to farmers' conditions. Their preferences consider multiple aspects - including morphological plant qualities such as height and panicle form, cooking qualities, and adaptation to the environment.
I contributed to many other areas of research as well - on-farm trials of different sorghum plant types (hybrids, improved, and local varieties) in different environments, evaluating the cooking qualities of sorghum varieties with dozens of villages, dual-purpose sorghum, perennial sorghum, supporting farmer seed cooperatives, and nutrition field schools. |
With a team of researchers at MSU, we conducted a qualitative evaluation of SUSTAIN. SUSTAIN is a program in four countries in Africa aiming to scale up the production and consumption of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP). OFSP is naturally biofortified with Vitamin A - but throughout Africa most people eat white-fleshed sweet potato, which doesn't have Vitamin A and may not have the qualities they love in a sweet potato: OFSP may be different in many ways, including taste, texture, cooking properties, and agronomic traits. Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of disease and death from severe infections and is the leading cause of preventable blindness. It particularly impacts children under 5 and pregnant women. The program intends to improve access to new OFSP varieties that have been bred to meet the fiber and moisture content preferences of farmers in Africa, and increase nutritional communication.
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Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture
Together with Dr. Kim Chung from MSU and other colleagues at FANTA, we developed this course on nutrition-sensitive agricultural programming. It provides a foundation in nutrition for agricultural workers and a framework for understanding ways in which nutrition can be integrated into agricultural programs. Follow the link above to learn more about each module or take the course! |
Northern Province, Rwanda
For my PhD at Michigan State University, I conducted research in the northern region of Rwanda. It is a mountainous country with an incredible amount of agricultural diversity. What's remarkable about this diversity is that it exists at the landscape, plant, and genetic level, and this diversity ends up on a typical Rwandan's plate. In other countries I've worked in, agricultural communities tend to have one staple crop, a few minor crops, and their diets are often supplemented with pasta and rice from the market. In other words, it's a starchy diet. In Rwanda though, they grow bananas, beans, sorghum, maize, squash, peas, diverse tuber crops and, they also eat all of them. So the crop diversity directly translates into dietary diversity. My research looked at crop diversity and farmer knowledge in a few different ways.
As a Fulbright Fellow I did participatory research with farmers to learn how they select bean varieties for their various cropping systems. Not surprisingly, Rwandan farmers have a wealth of knowledge about identifying varieties that work well in the intercrop systems they typically grow. Their knowledge and preferences about bean varieties for intercrop systems adds a lot of new insights into our understanding of variety and system interactions. We hope to use this research to inform bean breeding strategies for diverse low input cropping systems and to develop an intercrop bean “ideotype” for northern Rwanda. This research was partially funded by USAID CRSP. Another component of my research was more directly related to the crop diversity mentioned above. I did interviews to understand farmers' perceptions of the importance of crop diversity. They talked about crop diversity providing them with nutritious and diverse foods, goods for exchange with neighbors and on the market, and insurance in the case one of the crops fail. This diversity also allowed them to sell the most lucrative crop when they needed money for school or health fees or home improvement. Farmers placed a lot of value on diversity in the field, and on their children’s plates. Maintaining this diversity is an important element of farmer livelihoods. |
Lira, Uganda
In Uganda I worked with Action Against Hunger as a nutrition program manager in internally displaced persons camps (IDP). I was in charge of moderate malnutrition programs at 8 feeding centers. We carried out nutrition surveys, conducted education programs, and monitored and treated malnutrition. Together with my staff we developed a program to teach IDP camp residents how to detect malnutrition using MUAC tapes. In each of the camps we conducted training on malnutrition detection and the communities selected individuals that monitored malnutrition weekly. Empowering camp residents to identify malnourished children increased early detection and reduced recurrence rates.
Northern Potosi, Bolivia
In Bolivia I implemented an extensive baseline nutrition survey with World Neighbors (WN). At the time, WN was doing both agriculture and nutrition work and I was interested in if and how they integrate the two programs. That was the topic of my master's research, but while I was there they recruited me to carry out the nutrition survey. I trained the staff on how to do anthropometric measurements accurately, food frequency surveys, and dietary diversity surveys. We did these surveys in 50 communities all over the mountains of northern Potosi. It was an incredible experience in a beautiful remote region of the country.
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Unless otherwise noted, all photos taken by Krista Isaacs