Dr Simon Gwara obtained a BSc and an MSc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Zimbabwe in 2007 and 2011 respectively.
He started out as a research associate for the Socio-Economics Programme of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, Southern Africa national office, conducting research in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe and working on various projects for more than two years.
Dr Gwara later joined the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics as a research associate. Prior to that, he worked as a credit officer at the biggest agricultural bank in Zimbabwe, Agribank, before briefly joining the USAID-funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Income and Employment Development
(ZIM-AIED) programme as a credit officer for International Relief and Development.
He has acquired research experience in crop-livestock intensification systems, agricultural technology adoption, agricultural innovation systems, and food and nutrition security analysis, especially within smallholder farming communities. His research interest is sustainability science, waste management, systems and complex thinking, transdisciplinary research, and choice modelling.
University of Pretoria (UP) researchers lent their expertise to a recent study led by the University of KwaZulu-Natal and found that rural farmers in KwaZulu-Natal are open to buying and using compost made from human sewage as long as they can be sure that it is safe, affordable and works as well as other products on the market.
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