The 2018 autumn graduation ceremony marked a record harvest of graduates for the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development. The Department graduated eight PhD students; six in Agricultural Economics, one in Rural Development and one in Environmental Economics. Prompted on possible reasons for the success, the acting head, Prof Charles Machete attributed it to a number of factors which include a rigorous application process, a carefully monitored selection process supported by interviews with the prospective PhD students, dedicated supervisors and most importantly funding through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The large amount of graduates is also part of a legacy of the former head of the department, Prof. Johann Kirsten, who was instrumental in the completion of four of the eight PhD graduates. This departmental accomplishment also ensures one hundred percent of their permanent teaching staff have obtained doctorate degrees.

Seeing the row of graduates in their red gowns was indeed a proud moment!

From left to right the graduates are:

Dr Charity Nhemachena, supervised by the late Dr Liebenberg and Prof Kirsten. Dr Nhemachena applied a vintage econometric model to estimate the economic benefits of wheat varietal improvement research between 1950 and 2012. Her results highlight the impact of the drop in public funding on wheat variety improvement. Her recommendation, despite the progress in developing improved seed varieties, is for the public sector to aggressively multiply the released seed varieties and market the research outputs to farmers if they are to increase opportunities of becoming commercially successful.

Dr Tinashe Kapuya, was supervised by Profs Kirsten and Meyer. Dr Kapuya’s study focused on the internationalisation of agribusinesses in Sub-Saharan Africa and assessed a variety of case studies to identify the defining characteristics of various agribusinesses across the African continent. As the first comprehensive analysis of agribusiness internationalisation applied to Sub-Saharan Africa, the study made three main findings. Firstly, companies are investing across borders and make strategic decisions to forego immediate profit to attain long-term sustainability. Secondly, these companies are internationalising in a non-linear fashion. Thirdly, the internationalisation of these companies leads to the formalisation of corporate agro-food clusters.

Dr Rebecca Namulindwa, supervised by Prof Machethe, obtained her PhD in Rural Development. Her thesis looked at the participation of smallholder farmers in Zambia’s dairy value chain through interlocked contractual arrangements and its impact on household income. The research indicated that although smallholder dairy farmers participated in interlocked contractual arrangements, the intensity of participation was low. The results of the study contribute to the on-going debate on whether these institutional arrangements are inclusive of smallholder farmers and whether they genuinely benefit from participating in mainstream value chains.

Dr Patricia Davids, supervised by Profs Meyer and Westhoff. Dr Davids worked on maize trade in Sub-Saharan Africa. She presented a new approach to partial equilibrium modelling and how countries are linked through trade  and evaluated alternative future outcomes for African maize markets towards 2025.

Dr Marlene Louw, supervised by Profs Kirsten and Meyer, is the only doctorate student that graduated from the Economic and Management Sciences faculty. In her study, Dr Louw looked at the key drivers of food inflation in South Africa and also explored ways in which to link commodity industry dynamics with aggregate macroeconomic indicators such as food and headline inflation.

Dr Colleta Gandidzanwa, supervised by Prof Meyer , Prof. Kirsten and the late Dr Frikkie Liebenberg. Dr Gandidzanwa evaluated the changing nature and quality of machinery in South African agriculture in order to fill the knowledge gap emanating from the changing nature of agricultural mechanisation. An essential outcome of this study is an improved and more realistic capital series which provided useful data for future analysis on the interplay between capital and labour as well as the changing productivity in South African agriculture.

Unfortunately, Dr Mesay Gurmu, supervised by Profs Meyer and Hassan and Dr Hilary Ndambiri, supervised by Profs Mungatana and Brouwer, could not attend the graduation ceremony.

Dr Gurmu worked on the price transmission of maize and wheat in Ethiopia in the era of global food market turmoil. In his study, he applied various econometric techniques to understand and explain why the inflation in food prices has persisted in Ethiopia, in spite of the observed growth in food production. The results indicated that the Ethiopian government should give greater attention to creating space for the private sector to carry out spatial and intertemporal arbitrage operations effectively.

As an Environmental Economist, Dr Ndambiri focused on the economic valuation of air quality in Kenya. During his study Dr Ndambiri used seven states of the art econometric applications to evaluate two research questions; the uncertainty is affecting the scope and welfare estimations of individuals in economic valuations, and whether choice model formulation matter in welfare estimations, model performance and individuals’ heterogeneity in economic valuation. His results indicated that response uncertainty had a significant downward effect on scope and welfare estimations, and choice model formulations significantly affected welfare estimations, model performance and the way heterogeneity was captured.