Achievements!

A huge congratulations to Damien Jourdain who recently passed his HDR (Habilitation to Direct Research) exam through the University of Montpellier.

Media appearances

• Sheryl Hendriks wrote a blog post for the BMC Series on actively advancing the SDGs as part of their introductions of SDG Editorial Board Members series.
• Kristin Davis presented the results of the IFPRI-FAO Investment Center-CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets study “Investing in farmers’ capacities: Findings from a global case study approach” at the European Seminar on Extension Education conference hosted by the Teagasc Ballyhaise Agricultural College. She also presented “Engaging Youth in Agribusiness through Private Sector Extension and Advisory Services: Lessons from Rwanda and Uganda” at the Virtual Conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education.
• Valiant Odhiambo was interviewed about his recent publication for a feature article on the department’s website, which you can read here.
• Mmatlou Kalaba was interviewed on SAfm to talk about how land should be expropriated and the Amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution. Listen to the interview here.
• Marguerite Nel wrote an opinion piece on World Refugee Day that appeared on the department’s website.
• Suresh Chandra Babu presented at Climate Change and Problems of Scale webinar hosted by the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship’s ‘Engaging the Environmental Publics’ series.
• Nozipho Sweetness Puwana and Lunathi Hlakanyane co-wrote an opinion piece on World Ocean Day that appeared on the department’s website.

Publications

• Sheryl Hendriks co-wrote Cost and Affordability of Preparing a Basic Meal around the World as part of the Food Systems Summit Scientific Group publications.
• Sheryl Hendriks, Eness Mutsvangwa-Sammie and Valiant Odhiambo published a paper, The effect of an objective weighting of the global food security index’s natural resources and resilience component on country scores and ranking, in Food Security.
• Kristin Davis has co-authored several publications in the last few months:
  • International comparison of extension agent objectives and construction of a typology that was published in The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension.
  • Drivers of Youth Engagement in Agriculture: Insights from Guatemala, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda, together with Suresh Chandra Babu, was published as an IFPRI Discussion Paper 2010.
  • Organizational Innovation in Times of Crises: The Case of Extension and Advisory Services, together with Suresh Chandra Babu, in The Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education.
  • Effective organizational functioning capacity needs of rural advisory service networks: A delphi examination in The Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education.
  • Model of success: Extension services helping Ugandan youth find a career in agriculture in The Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education.

Scheduled events

• The African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE) Inaugural Conference will take place from 2 to 4 August 2021. Submissions of papers in all areas of environmental and resource economics, will close on 16 July. Please submit papers to [email protected]. More details on the event can be found here.
• The United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 Science Days will take place from 8 to 9 July 2021. Join them to contribute to the scientific debate on how to transform our food systems and share experiences and insights around science-based actions and solutions. You can find the Science Days Program here. Register here for this event.