Agriculture and Pest Management - Personal statement for commonwealth scholarship

Personal statement essay

I'm preparing for commonwealth scholarship next and I want my essay to be reviewed

a) How would your proposed study relates to a particular Development challenge or need at global, national or local level
b) How would your proposed study relates to your chosen CSC theme under which your course is offered

Growing up in a farming community and also as farmer, much has changed since I was a child. Pests and diseases has become a serious issue causing significant losses, threatening food security, and livelihood of vulnerable farmers.

Since 2016, it is estimated that Ghana has lost about US$64 million through fall armyworm infestation (Asante 2018: Ghanaweb 2018c). Adding the losses caused by diseases and other pests in this same period of time will be disheartening. Pesticides has been the only solution and it is causing more harm than good by killing beneficial insects and also has effect on our health and the environment.

This problem is a course for major concern and if left unsolved can have negative impact on production of raw materials and also makes farming an unreliable source of income.

This inspires me a lot be part of the change and has ignited my interest in undertaking postgraduate studies in Insect Pest Management/Entomology.

Agriculture is the backbone of Ghana's economy, underpinning export earnings, food security and community development. Yet production has lagged behind due to many constraints which pests and diseases play a major role.

Integrated Pest Management promotes sustainable approach of efficient and environmentally friendly technologies to manage pest and diseases to boast production, improve the quality of crops and the welfare of the environment.

Utilizing an integrated and technical approach to pest management will be important for food security, environmental protection and sustainable agriculture as the world population continues to increase (Anderson et al., 2019)

Save for some researched information, this essay is devoid of any actual content that relates to the given prompts. The worms do not appear to be a national concern since there are no government projects in action to address the issue. Even the writer shows only a superficial concern for the problem as there is no reference to any personal interest and actions being undertaken to address the issue on a local scale. There is a lack of engagement between the writer and the government that would help the information presented become relevant to the prompts.

The content of this writing is nothing more than an early draft of possible ideas that maybe expanded in content to address the 2 prompts. Further related information presentation and development is necessary to improve the content. This draft is not useful beyond being introductory paragraph topics.