Angélica Ramírez Moguel wins first EU-FarmBook Student Prize
Ghent University awards master graduate Angélica Ramírez Moguel with the first EU-FarmBook Student Prize. Pieter Spanoghe and Inge De Bo commended her outstanding work on long term soil phosphorus (P) mining in agriculture during the Solemn Proclamation with award ceremony in September.
Ramírez Moguel, a graduate of the International Master of Science in Soils and Global Change at the Faculty of BioScience Engineering (UGent), has mastered to translate the complex research results on three experimental sites in Flanders to better understand P mining’s potential into a form, that is of practical use for farmers.
She has created a podcast that will be available on EU-FarmBook and allows farmers easily access and practical help for their daily farming practices.
“Whay she did is a perfect example of what EU-FarmBook stands for” says Spanoghe, Head of the Research Group of Crop Protection Chemistry, Ghent University and Coordinator of EU-FarmBook. “We want to close the gap between research and practice and bring practical help in the hand of farmers, foresters and advisors across Europe.”
“Ramírez Moguel´s work was outstanding because she accepted the challenge to present the topic of P mining in a comprehensive, condensed and attractive way, so farmers can implement the new practices, proven on the experimental sites,” says Inge De Bo, Scientific Coordinator of EU-FarmBook end emphasis that they are happy to support young researchers.
The prize was created to help young researchers understand the importance of translating research results into a language and form that is accessible to the practitioners in the field. “We want to create awareness that the research done during their master’s dissertation is of importance for the knowledge creation for academia and for society, so sharing our commitment to social responsibility,” says De Bo.
The EU-FarmBook Student Prize is endowed with 500 euro and will be awarded again next year. It will be extended for ‘Translating the young researchers outputs to practice’ to all students from the ENLIGHT community , focusing on the solutions in the agri-food and forestry sectors. ENLIGHT is European university Network to promote equitable quality of Life, sustaInability and Global engagement through Higher education Transformation and an alliance of ten European universities of which one is UGent.
Angélica Ramírez Moguel found out about the prize and EU-FarmBook at her faculty and says, that the platform is an interesting initiative that creates a bridge of communication between academia and practice. She knew that she had to participate. “I wondered how I could translate my thesis into something simple and understandable.” Together with her supervisor the idea for a podcast was born. The former student says: “I think that translating our research into forms that are understandable to farmers allows us to see that what we are doing is important and has an impact.”
She graduated in September and hopes to bring back many inspiring ideas to her home country Mexico after gaining some work experience in the European Union.
