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11 March 2022 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Dr Ralph Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the Afromontane Research Unit.

The African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), in association with the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), is hosting the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022). The theme of the conference is Southern African Mountains – their value and vulnerabilities.

The conference will bring relevant people together into one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity and academic outputs that feed into policy and action. 

The conference will take place from 14 to 17 March 2022 in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho. 

According to the SAMC2022 website, this is a truly Southern African regional mountain conference, targeting the African region south of the Congo rainforest (DRC) and Lake Rukwa (Tanzania), but including Madagascar, the Comoros and the Mascarenes (i.e., Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo [southern mountains], Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, La Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

Dr Ralph Clark, ARU Director, said the conference would be a high-level international event with UNESCO patronage and very valuable sponsors.

“The programme will have six parallel tracks (one being dedicated to postgraduate students), with about 200 papers being delivered. In addition, we have some very high-profile special sessions, such as an MRI special session on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a UNESCO special session on regional collaboration. We also have Prof Julian Bayliss, described as the man who discovered an unseen world, as the guest speaker at the closing event.”

The conference will bring together relevant people in one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies, with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

The GLOMOS team, one of the long-term partners of the ARU, spent the week of 8 to 11 March 2022 on the Qwaqwa Campus to strengthen collaboration and pave the way for new research opportunities in Phuthaditjhaba and the Maloti-Drakensberg.
GLOMOS represents an interface between the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Eurac Research. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stefano Terzi, said: “It’s very interesting for us to look at the Maloti-Drakensberg area because of its diversity. We are in the process of really exciting collaborations.”
Their projects include an understanding of the root causes of land degradation and improving decision-making processes for current water management within the context of water scarcity in the Maloti-Drakensberg.
• For more information on the speakers and the programme, click here 


News Archive

UFS academics serve high in ranks of Cereal Science institutions
2017-10-10

Description: Cereal Science Tags: Cereal Science

Dr Angie van Biljon, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), was elected as president of Cereal Science and Technology South Africa (CST-SA) at their bi-annual general meeting, in Pretoria.

Prof Maryke Labuschagne, Professor in Plant Breeding at the UFS and official representative of South Africa in the American Association for Cereal Chemists International from 2007, was re-elected as the South African representative to the American Association for Cereal Chemists. She attends the annual conference in the US as well as the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (the European counterpart of AACC) regularly. “I use these conferences to report on the research done by the research team at the UFS on gluten protein, baking quality and nutritional value of cereals,” she said.

Prof. Labuschagne was also involved in a training course for the baking industry. 

Both Dr Van Biljon and Prof Labuschagne are involved in research on wheat gluten proteins, which is critical to the baking industry. CST-SA is a platform to disseminate this and other research, not only locally but also internationally. The aim of this society is to advance cereal science and technology both in the public sector and in the industry of Southern Africa.

CST-SA creates an opportunity for staff and
students working on cereals to interact
with the industry. This prevents research
from being just academic and creates
an opportunity to bring the research and the
industry together.

Wheat research not just academic
According to Prof Labuschagne CST-SA creates an opportunity for staff and students working on cereals to interact with the industry. This prevents research from being just academic and creates an opportunity to bring the research and the industry together. This has been very useful for students at the university working on cereals, as they have made presentations at the “New Voices” symposium, a forum for postgraduate students to present their research.

“Through CST-SA we have also, through the years, presented our research on an international level at the annual meetings of the American Association for Cereal Chemists and the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology,,” said Prof Labuschagne.

The science of cereals
CST-SA is an association of organisations and individuals, from both the private and public sectors, who are actively involved in the science and technology of cereals. Its aim is to promote the dissemination of knowledge and information on cereal science and technology through meetings, publications, workshops and other means. CST-SA also organises training courses for the industry. In the past years there was a course for the baking industry and one for the milling industry and also the “New Voices” symposium”.

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