EDITORIAL BOARD

CHIEF – EDITOR

Prof. Jonathan M. Nzuma

University of Nairobi (UON)

Nairobi, Kenya

Dr. Jonathan Nzuma is a Senior lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, where he specializes in Agricultural Trade Policy, Commodity Markets, Rural Development, and Impact Evaluations. He has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Business from the University of Guelph, Canada, and an MSc and BSc from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Nzuma has a wide-spanning experience in agricultural research and development has been a faculty member since 2002 where he has supervised several masters and Ph.D. students successfully and won numerous academic awards and research grants. His research interests include analysis of agricultural policies, consumer demand analysis, price transmission analysis, impact evaluations, food security and agricultural technology transfer, social networks, and gender empowerment dividends. To keep abreast of cutting-edge developments in Agricultural Economics, Dr. Nzuma is a member of the International Association Agricultural Economics (IAAE), and the African Association of Agricultural Economics (AAAE). His strong academic experience is coupled with a vast out-of-class experience having worked for The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He is well-traveled within Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and North America making him conversant with the diverse agricultural systems around the world. This puts him on the frontline in putting agricultural research into perspective.

CO-EDITOR

Dr. Camillus A. Wongnaa

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

Kumasi, Ghana

Dr. Camillus Abawiera Wongnaa had his education at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana (BSc. Agriculture and PhD. Agricultural Economics), University of Ghana, Legon (MPhil. Agricultural Economics) and University of Education, Winneba, Ghana (Diploma in Education). With over nineteen (19) years of teaching experience in Ghana, Camillus has taught at the Primary, Junior High, Senior High, and Tertiary school levels. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness, and Extension of KNUST. Before joining KNUST in August 2016, he had worked for five (5) years as a Lecturer and later a Senior Lecturer and a Head of Department of Agropreneurship of Kumasi Technical University, a department he established. Camillus was a member of the consulting team that executed the End of Project Evaluation of the Sorghum Value Chain Project in Ghana. He was a co-consultant in a Needs Assessment of Poultry Associations in Ghana Project for the Ghana Poultry Project (GPP). He was also one of the consultants in the Impact Study of Root Capital’s Agricultural Enterprises that link smallholder farmers to markets in Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire where he served as an Agricultural Economist. Currently, Camillus is KNUST’s Principal Investigator (PI) in a United Nations University (UNU)’s project on the Promotion of Knowledge Exchange, Creation and Sharing between Africa and Asia in support of Africa’s Sustainable Development. Dr. Wongnaa has published over 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters. His research areas are production economics, productivity and efficiency analysis, food security, rural livelihood as well as climate change and agriculture.

CO-EDITOR

Dr. Selma Karuaihe

University of Pretoria

South Africa

Selma Karuaihe is a Senior Lecturer and Past Acting Head of Department, in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, University of Pretoria (UP). She is the Past President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE – https://afaere.org/) and previous Associate Coordinator of the South African SDG Hub at UP. She is a resource and environmental economist with a vast, teaching, research and consultancy experience, performed at different institutions and in different capacities around the world. Selma’s professional career involves visiting lectureship at the University of Applied Sciences, Schmalkalden, Germany; Head of Economics Department at the University of Namibia (UNAM); member of the Academic Board of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC); Senior Economist at the Department of Economic Development, City of Johannesburg; Senior Research Manager at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC); and Visiting Lecturer of the Collaborative Masters Program in Applied Agricultural Economics (CMAAE) coordinated by the AERC. Her interest is in development and issues arising from utilisation of natural and environmental resources for sustainable development. She holds a PhD from Washington State University (WSU), US.

 

CO-EDITOR FRENCH

Dr. Mustapha Jouili

Université de Carthage, Nabeul

Tunis, Tunisia

CO-EDITOR FRENCH

Dr. Cyrille B. Kamdem

University of Yaoundé II

Yaoundé, Cameroon

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Dr. Tahirou Abdoulaye

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Bamako, Mali

Dr. Tahirou Abdoulaye is an Agricultural Economist working for IITA. He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, USA. He has more than 25 years of experience in conducting research on development and agricultural economics-related issues in Africa. His research work covers a wide range of rural economic issues including seed systems, farm-level efficiency, and impact evaluation in Africa in general with emphasis on West Africa. His most recent research work focuses on innovation systems and climate change. His research has appeared in several outlets including the African Journal of Agriculture and Resource Economics (AfJARE), Agricultural Economics (AE), American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE), Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE), Food Policy (FP), World Development (WD), etc… Since 2019 he has been serving as an academic editor for PLOSOne.

Dr. Moti D. Jaleta

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Dr. Moti Jaleta is a Senior Agricultural Economist and working at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) since 2011. Before joining CIMMYT, Moti worked at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) as Market Economist. His research areas of interest are adoption and impacts assessment of improved agricultural technologies with special focus on maize and wheat, crop-livestock interactions and their implications on the sustainability of cereal-based mixed farming systems, analyze the role of agricultural markets and value chain development in smallholder commercialization, and assess impacts of conservation agriculture-based practices as a means of sustainable intensification of smallholder farming in maize and wheat-based systems of Eastern and Southern Africa. He also worked on the role of national policies on the adoption and expansion of smallholder mechanization. Moti holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and MSc in Agricultural Economics and Management, both from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Dr. Beatrice W. Muriithi

International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE)

Nairobi, Kenya

Dr. Beatrice Muriithi holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences (Agricultural and Development Economics specialization) from the Center of Development Studies (ZEF), the University of Bonn in Germany, Msc. in Agricultural and Applied Economics and Bsc. in Agricultural Economics both from Egerton University, Kenya. She has over 10 years of wealth experience in agricultural research and development both in training and professional experience from national and international institutions. Currently, she is a Socio Economist at the Social Science and Impact Assessment Unit (SSIAU), of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), in Nairobi, Kenya. Her key research interests include impact evaluation, gender analysis, institutional economics, supply chain analysis, technology generation, and adoption, poverty, food, and nutrition security studies, monitoring and evaluation, and applied micro-econometrics. From a very humble research beginning working with public sector with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Sector Coordination Unit (ASCU), she rose to become a Research Assistant at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, then a junior researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship, before joining ICIPE on a competitive post-doctoral placement with the Department for International Development (DFID). She has independently and with her colleagues written competitive research proposals and won grants from local, regional, and international organizations. She is a winner of the 2017 Science by Women Programme for Women, Science, Technology, and Innovation in Africa fellowship by the Mujeres por Africa foundation in Spain, 2016 Structural Transformation of African Agricultural and Rural Spaces (STAARS) fellowship by Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), Kenya, among other awards and recognitions of scholarly achievements. Beatrice command excellent qualitative and quantitative data analysis skills, that are evident from her wide publication domains on adoption and impact of agricultural technologies and practices including poverty, gender, food security among others. She has authored and co-authored books and book chapters and over 20 articles in reputable peer-reviewed journals and participated and competently presented her other work in many national, regional, and international workshops and conferences. Additionally, she serves as a scientific reviewer for a couple of journals that publish the development of economic-related subjects. She has also been involved in building the capacity of younger scientists through mentorship and supervision of Undergraduate interns, MSc and Ph.D. students from various universities in Africa.

Dr. Milu Muyanga

Michigan State University (MSU)

East Lancing, MI, USA

Dr. Milu Muyanga is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University since June 2013. He is appointed in the fixed term system. He conducts his research, outreach, and capacity building activities in Africa currently working intensively with research collaborators in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia. Milu is an emerging thought leader in agriculture and rural transformation in Africa with his research focusing on emerging agricultural land constraints and sustainable intensification in Africa, emerging medium-scale farms, changing structure of African farms, and youth livelihoods. Dr. Muyanga is widely traveled and published in a wide range of increasingly impactful refereed journals. He was recognized by the Global Development Network, winning the first prize on Best Research on Household Exposure to Risk theme in 2007. Prior to his doctoral studies, Milu worked as a Research Fellow with Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development, Egerton University (Kenya) between 2004 and 2007. Before then he worked as an Economist in the Ministry of Planning and National Development in the Government of Kenya between 1997 and 2003. Currently, Dr. Muyanga is on a long-term assignment in Lilongwe, Malawi, where he is overseeing the creation of two Food Security Group projects. First, the establishment of Policy Support for Agriculture Transformation (PolSAT) project. PolSAT is a policy advisory unit embedded in the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. Second, the establishment of a pre-eminent, respected, neutral, and self-sustaining agricultural policy institute, named the Malawi Agricultural Policy Advancement and Transformation Agenda – MwAPATA – which means “we’ve won” in Chichewa, the main language of Malawi. Milu is currently serving as the Institute’s inaugural Research Director.

Dr. Grace Kumchulesi

National Planning Commission (NPC)

Lilongwe, Malawi

Dr. Grace Kumchulesi is a Development Economist with 15 years of experience through her roles as a university lecturer, project manager, and researcher. She is the Director of Development Planning of National Planning Commission and serves on the Boards of Illovo Sugar (Malawi) plc and WeltHungerHilfe Malawi. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of Malawi Economic Justice Network, led the Strategic Learning for a USAID Titukulane Development Food Security Activity to support the implementation of the National Resilience Strategy. She also served as the National Research Collaborator for Malawi’s Zero Hunger and Malnutrition Strategic Review, funded by the UN. Within this role, she used STATA to analyze data that assessed the impact of the program on food and nutrition security and represented the research team in all stakeholder engagements at both district and national levels. She used the evidence from this research to provide technical support to stakeholders such as the Lead Convener (former Vice President of the Republic of Malawi) and his high-level Advisory Board on disseminating their findings and recommendations. Grace also brings her experience as former Director of Research in the Malawi Public Policy Research and Analysis project (under the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning, and Development) in strengthening capacity of public officials and non-state actors in translating, disseminating, and utilizing research evidence. She is well-versed with the macroeconomic environment, policy landscape, and policy processes in Malawi and led the process of developing the National Population Policy. Recently, she was engaged by UNDP Malawi and Malawi Government to review the National Budget to determine the level of support for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Malawi and was involved in pre-budget consultations as head of Malawi Economic Justice Network. She previously worked as a Knowledge Translation Scientist, conducting demographic dividend research studies in Malawi, Swaziland, and Botswana, and soft skills development studies in Nigeria. Previously, she also held a lecturing position at Chancellor College in the University of Malawi where she taught both undergraduate and graduates, supervised research, and mentored students. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, an MA in Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Malawi. She held a post-doctoral Fellow at Population Council in New York and was a visiting researcher at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany. Grace is Malawian and is based in Lilongwe, Malawi. She has excellent oral and written communication skills in English and Chichewa languages.

Dr. Jacob Ricker-Gilbert

Purdue University

West Lafayette, IN, USA

Dr. Jacob Ricker-Gilbert joined the faculty at Purdue in 2011, after completing his PhD at Michigan State University. Since that time he has built a research program around the theme of increasing agricultural intensification and productivity for small-scale farmers in the developing world. Most of his current work focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, and the core topics are 1) Evaluating the economic impacts of input subsidies in Africa; 2) Estimating the impact of farmland markets on agricultural productivity and livelihoods in Africa; 3) analyzing the economics of smallholder farm households’ post-harvest decisions in Africa; 4) studying how smallholder farm households in Africa adapt to climate change. Ricker-Gilbert has published numerous peer-reviewed articles related to these themes and has given seminars and workshops to share the findings of his research with African governments, businesses, and donor organizations. The policy relevance of Ricker-Gilbert’s research was recognized in 2017 when he was a member of a team that won the Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Economic Policy Analysis at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) annual meeting. He was named a University Faculty Scholar at Purdue in 2020 in recognition of the impact of his research.

Dr. Kelvin M. Shikuku

WorldFish (WF)

Penang, Malaysia

Dr. Kelvin Mashisia Shikuku is a Scaling Scientist with WorldFish based in Penang, Malaysia. Prior to joining WorldFish, Dr. Shikuku worked with the International Potato Center (CIP) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) as a research associate. He was also a part-time lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in development economics and macroeconomics. He holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. His research interests are primarily in the fields of agricultural economics and development economics, with a focus on agricultural and rural development. Dr. Shikuku is interested in research about approaches for scaling aquaculture and agricultural innovations; technology diffusion within social networks; seed systems; climate change including estimating resilience of rural livelihoods to covariate and idiosyncratic shocks; nutrition-sensitive agriculture/aquaculture; food safety including developing countries’ willingness to pay for food quality and safety; evaluating adoption and causal impacts of agricultural/aquaculture technologies and practices; and the role of research and policy in promoting sustainable food systems. He enjoys using randomized control trials (RCTs), framed experiments, games, and quasi-experimental approaches to not only understand economic phenomena and human behavior but more importantly influence evidence-based policymaking. Dr. Shikuku has authored and co-authored several publications and book chapters. His career goal is to, ‘influence developing countries’ agricultural and aquaculture transformation for improved human welfare through rigorous research.’

Dr. Oliver K. Kirui

Centre for Development Research (ZEF)

Bonn, Germany

Dr. Oliver Kirui is a Senior Researcher and a Post Doc. fellow at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, Germany. He earned his Ph.D. in Development Economics from the Centre for Development Research, the University of Bonn in 2016. He holds a collaborative Master of Science in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Nairobi and the University of Pretoria with specializations in International Agricultural Trade and Agricultural Policy Analysis. He has in the past worked as a Research Associate in the socioeconomics program in the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, Nairobi, Kenya; a consultant with Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support Systems (ReSAKSS) at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya; and as Research Assistant at the electronic Agricultural Research Network in Africa (eARN). Oliver’s research interests revolve around Sustainable Development. Oliver is currently carrying out research that would contribute to sustainable agricultural growth and food and nutrition security in developing and emerging economies. This includes research on the economics of Agricultural Innovations, Natural Sustainable Resource Management and Climate Change, assessment of Use and Impacts of Digitalization, Information Communication Technologies, Technical and Vocational Training, and Food Security and Poverty analysis. He is currently carrying out research that would contribute to sustainable agricultural growth and food and nutrition security as part of the Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (www.research4agrinnovation.org) in several countries in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, Tunisia, Zambia, and Mozambique) and India. This involves identifying, promoting, and supporting the scaling of proven and promising innovations along and across the agri-food value chains. It also involves an assessment of the direct and indirect impacts of proven and potentially promising innovations.

Dr. Lilian Nkengla-Asi

Oxfam America

Washington DC, USA

“Dr. Lilian Nkengla is a Senior Advisor for Agriculture and Markets at Oxfam America engaged in strategic planning, research, program design, and partnership management within the Inclusive and Resilient Food Systems Theme. Currently, she is working on agricultural value chains, market-based programming, and climate resilience especially for smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia. She leads and coordinates agricultural development programs and works with several partners and actors including governments, the private sector, and CSOs to promote a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable rural economy. She is the focal point on gender for the Food and Climate Justice sub-theme of the Food Systems Theme. Before joining Oxfam Lilian has worked extensively as a Gender Scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Cameroon and International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Bamako, Mali. She led and coordinated several projects on agricultural value chains, gender integration in ICRISAT breeding programs in West Africa, climate resilience, and market systems-related research. As a social scientist and a qualitative researcher, she has authored and co-authored several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters related to gender and seed systems, value chains, food security, climate change among others. She has extensive experience supporting and building partnerships, capacity building, and organizing and facilitating workshops and seminars. She has supervised more than 15 MS and Ph.D. students either as principal advisor, committee member, or as an external examiner. Lilian is a fellow and Sub Saharan Gender Specialist with Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) with Universities of Cornell, USA, and Makerere, Uganda. She was a Visiting Fellow at IFPRI Washington DC in 2017 and also served in the Advisory Board of the SEEP Annual Conference on “Building Resilience through Market Systems” in 2019 at Arlington, Virginia. She is currently a member of the Conference Experience Committee of SEEP supporting the design of this year’s conference on “Disruptive Collaboration: navigating a radically uncertain world”. Lilian holds a Ph.D. in Gender and Natural Resource Management from Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany.”

Dr. William J. Burke

Agricultural and Food Policy Consulting (AFP)

Baltimore, MD, USA

“Dr. William J. Burke is an Agricultural Economist with a focus on Africa that began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia, where he served from 2001 to 2003. He earned his Masters and Doctoral degrees from Michigan State University in 2009 and 2012 respectively. In early 2010 he began a long-term overseas assignment in Zambia, where his work focused on several aspects of the maize and fertilizer sectors. In addition to carrying out fieldwork as a doctoral candidate, his time in Zambia was spent providing research, outreach, and capacity building services for the Food Security Research Project and Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute. After completing his Ph.D., he remained in Zambia as an Assistant Professor, International Development, until joining Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment in September of 2012. In September of 2016, he incorporated Agricultural and Food Policy Consulting. In his work as an economist he has been honored to receive the 2009 Best Thesis Award from Michigan State University’s Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics; the 2009 award for Best Paper in Agricultural Economics; The 2013 Horizon Ribbon Award, from Washington College (his alma mater); the 2017 Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis; in 2017 he was elected to the Food Tank Board of Directors, and in 2019 he was named an “Outstanding Reviewer” for The American Journal of Agricultural Economics.”