UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Monday, 2 September 2019 at 5.30 pm
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR JAMES KINSELLA, School of Agriculture and Food Science on 2 September 2019, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa on BR TONY DOLAN.
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President, Graduates, Colleagues, Honoured Guests
If you search for Br Tony Dolan on Google he is not there! However, if you ask many of the overseas development organisations in Ireland and across Europe or Ministry of Agriculture and Education officials in Kenya and Uganda he is very well known and highly respected for his work on sustainable agriculture and in particular in agricultural education. Perhaps more significantly, if you ask farmers and community leaders in Western Kenya and Northern Uganda about him they know him as Brother Tony, a man who lives with them and supports them in achieving sustainable systems of farming that provide better livelihoods for their families.
Tony grew up in Co. Leitrim; He is an agriculture degree graduate from UCD in 1971; A Leitrim and UCD footballer of note; A Franciscan Brother who is now Minister General of the Fransciscan Brothers of Mountbellew; and in his work, an agricultural educationalist.
To best appreciate Br Tony’s work and achievements in agricultural education there are three distinct locations and time periods to consider.
The first being Mountbellew, Co. Galway (1971 to 1989): On graduating from UCD in 1971, Tony started teaching at Mountbellew Agricultural College and was appointed Principal of the College shortly afterwards in 1973. A position he held until 1989. At Mountbellew he led the development of new dairy and beef units and associated training at the college which in turn enabled many young farmers in the region to successfully navigate their way in a rapidly modernising agriculture of the time. While Principal he was also on the Board of ACOT and was Chairman and Secretary of the Private Agricultural and Horticultural Colleges.
The second phase is in Molo, Western Kenya (1989 to 2009): Brother Tony always had the plan to work in Africa and took over as Principal at Baraka Farmers’ Training Centre in Molo, Western Kenya in 1989. At this centre, in a chronically poor and agriculture-dependent region of Kenya, he set about building the capabilities of smallholder farmers in sustainable farming practices. He successfully guided the upgrading of the centre to an Agriculture College and also set about bringing a new and vibrant meaning to the role of agriculture as the basis for social and economic wellbeing and to attract young people into agricultural training. Over the following years Baraka Agricultural College became a highly respected college delivering a combination of top quality short training courses as well as Diploma and Certificate courses in a range of agriculture and rural development subjects. Since establishment the college has graduated just over 2,000 young men and women who contribute to development in their local communities throughout Kenya and Uganda. The Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development curriculum developed at Baraka College as a strategy for rural development has been accepted by the Kenyan Government as a nationally accredited training course curriculum to be implemented in Kenya and beyond as a Level 5 Competence Based Training Course.
The third and final phase relates to Adraa Agriculture College in Northern Uganda (2009 to date): In 2009 Br Tony left Kenya and with some colleagues went to a remote and challenging region of Northern Uganda to establish an agricultural and rural development training centre to assist farm households who were surviving on subsistence agriculture and also refugees from South Sudan who were in camps in the region. Br Tony and his colleagues built a good rapport and trust with the local community and acquired land from the farmers on which the college facility was built. By 2012, Adraa Agriculture College had started short training courses with small groups of 20-30 farmers even without facilities being fully in place (no electricity and limited water supply). In this 3 years of establishing the college Br Tony lived with others in a small house and despite becoming very ill he continued the work. With the support of a number of development NGOs and the hard work of a core team led by Br Tony, Adraa Agriculture College now has an intake of 1,200 students/ year on 4-6 week courses. The students are a mix of refugees from South Sudan and who are allocated small plots of land to farm as well as local Ugandan farmers. The training equips them with skills to increase food production in a sustainable way.
Sustainable Agriculture: While the concept of sustainable agriculture is now firmly embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals and is to the forefront in the global climate change agenda, Br. Tony has been 20 years ahead of his time with the promotion and teaching of practical and grounded actions for sustainable agriculture in Kenya and Uganda. Intercropping, soil and moisture management, agro-forestry and beekeeping are all practices which epitomise sustainable agriculture and were promoted by Br Tony in the training programmes developed and delivered to farmers in Kenya and Uganda.
Final comments: While his exceptional and wide-reaching achievements in agricultural education in Ireland, Kenya and Uganda are acknowledged as well as his outstanding contribution to the science underpinning sustainable agriculture and rural development - the true contribution of Br Tony is best seen in the powerful combination of intelligence, rigor, integrity and sheer humanity which he brings to his work. His patience, calmness and resilience combined with a great ability to simply listen to people, are all hallmarks of his work. As is the great sense of trust he engenders in how he gets things done in a quiet, inspirational and highly effective way. His journey and achievements in agricultural education to this point have been both remarkable and understated. It is very appropriate that we now get a chance to acknowledge these achievements
Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad Gradum Doctoratus Scientiae; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.