James Ntambi is the 2024 recipient of the Global Research & Outreach (GRO) Award. The GRO Award seeks to advance sustainable agriculture and the life sciences through a focus on food systems decarbonization, water sustainability, novel agronomic systems, feeding the world through plant biology, promoting healthy aging through gut microbiome & nutrition, and preventing vector-borne diseases.
James Ntambi is a Katherine Berns Von Donk Steenbock Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Nutritional Sciences. His proposal, ‘Impact of Enhancing Soybean Sack Gardening on the Lowering of Protein Deficiency Among Children in the Lweza-Mukono Community of Uganda’ aims to address and prevent malnutrition through the distribution of soybean plant “sack gardens”. The project will take place in the Lweza village Mukono, Uganda. To increase protein consumption within the community, sack garden kits will be created comprising of a plastic sack, 8-10 soybean seedlings, a mixture of black soil and cow manure and nutritional pamphlets. The pamphlets will include an overview of basic nutritional information and information about the benefits of soybean plants. The plan is to distribute two sack garden kits to two hundred households, focusing on families with young mothers and children.
Dr. Ntambi will collaborate with Jacqueline Miller, an undergraduate student at UW-Madison majoring in Biochemistry, Biology, and Italian with a certificate in Health and the Humanities, Alexandra Anagnostopoulos, an undergraduate at UW-Madison majoring in Neurobiology with a certificate in Global Health, and Ronald Nsimbe, a collaborator on both UW Global Health Certificate programs: “Agriculture, Health, and Nutrition” and “Mobile Clinics & Health Care in Uganda.