The 2015 winner of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, will speak on Oct. 12 at Central College.

Eric Pohlman’s presentation titled “Putting Farmers First: The One Acre Fund Case Study in East Africa,” is free and open to the public at 11 a.m. in Cox-Snow Recital Hall. Pohlman is Rwanda country director and senior partner for the social enterprise One Acre Fund.

Since 2007, he has worked in Rwanda help subsistence farmers better afford modern agriculture technology. To that end, Pohlman helped create an innovative farm finance model that serves 100,000 farm families, as well as nearly 500 farmer agents who conduct small-group trainings. In 2016, fully ten percent of Rwanda’s population is enrolled in Pohlman’s program.