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Joe Peters, adjunct assistant professor of biology at Grand Valley
State University, also made an important contribution during his
year-long Fulbright sojourn. An environmental sciences grantee
to Vietnam, Peters was assigned to the Hanoi University of Science.
He collaborated with his wife, Dai Peters, from the International
Potato Center, colleagues at Thai Nguyen College of Agriculture
and forestry and rural farmers to conduct on-farm research on
the potential environmental and economic benefits of expanded
cultivation of sweet potatoes in Vietnam.
Experienced as a teacher of natural resources management, environmental
policy and rural development, Peters encouraged participating
farmers to test the sweet potato as a continuous crop and advised
them on how best to produce and utilize the vines as animal feed.
The on-farm trials and education demonstrations he organized showed
farmers how cultivating sweet potatoes could increase family income
and reduce soil erosion from their hillside farmlands.
Peters also did important research during his year in Vietnam
on the interplay between tourism and the environment.
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