About
45
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Introduction
I have a passion for creating learning opportunities; my courses focus on development, innovation and facilitation of change. I have worked mainly on urban agriculture, sustainability and change in West and East Africa. My current research interests are sustainability learning and sustainability and resilience of socio-ecological systems.
Additional affiliations
October 2009 - present
Publications
Publications (45)
Purpose: To develop a transformative learning process around the potential for innovation of technologies such as Conservation Agriculture.
Design/methodology/approach: We applied principles of Transformative Learning and Communicative Action theories to design a learning process structured by the Qualitative Expert Assessment Tool for Conservation...
Given that graduates of higher education institutions will be the future decision makers addressing sustainability challenges, this study assesses the effects of a transdisciplinary university learning program on sustainability attitudes, skills, and agency. We investigated these variables with a sample of 117 previous participants in the Internati...
Cattle production in southwestern Burkina Faso is under pressure because of resource scarcity, changing climate, and cattle diseases. Well-adapted local breeds, such as Lobi taurine cattle, are increasingly replaced by more productive exotic breeds. Community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) could be a viable option for preserving the breed and impr...
Purpose
Higher education is uncertain which sustainability-related education targets should be sought and monitored. Accepting that something needs to be measurable to be systematically improved, the authors explored how measures relate to potential targets. This paper aims to focus on dispositions to think critically (active open-minded thinking a...
Higher education for sustainable development (HESD) has grown into a substantial field of research and practice. HESD proposes that higher education will be central in a transition towards more sustainable socio-ecological systems. However, the debates on what should be learned in HESD and how this should be learned have remained conceptually contr...
Over the past decade, community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) have been promoted as a viable approach to improving smallholder livelihoods through a systematic livestock breeding. CBBPs aim to initiate systematic breeding at the community level, including an organized animal identification and recording of performance and pedigree data. To ensure...
Livestock keepers in southwestern Burkina Faso hold the local Lobi taurine breed, local Zebu cattle, and their crosses. Some communities in the region have begun to implement community-based cattle breeding programs (CBBPs), which involve animal tagging and recording and, potentially, also bull sharing. Based on the hypothesis that the participatio...
Cattle production is an essential livelihood strategy in south-western Burkina Faso. Although having a distinct cultural role and known to be resistant against African animal trypanosomosis, the Lobi taurine cattle breed is endangered due to its low market value. As the first step in preservation efforts, our study aimed to develop a typology of pr...
Community seed banks (CSBs) are initiatives to support the conservation and use of diverse crops though locally rooted collective action. The impact of CSBs is assumed to be complex, but has not been investigated in detail. Our study addresses this gap by analysing the impact of CSBs using social-ecological resilience as theoretical framework. We f...
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural practices for sustainable intensification need to be up-scaled from project interventions to institutional mainstreaming. However, several constraints, including a general lack of resources and knowledge, limited institutional support and challenging market conditions hamper this process. The objective of thi...
The concepts of food security and food sustainability are two main paradigms in the food system discourse—however, they are often addressed separately in the scientific literature. We argue that this disconnect hinders a coherent discussion of sustainability transitions, which will be necessary to solve problems (environmental, social, economic, an...
The academic discourse on sustainability transitions has gained momentum. This discourse, however, has been criticised for underplaying questions of power and politics. The critique seems particularly relevant when applied to agri-food systems. Our review explores how power and politics have been addressed in sustainability transitions research-wit...
Transitions to sustainable food systems are considered necessary to addresssustainability challenges in industrial food systems – but also to achieve food andnutrition security especially in countries of the South. To facilitate such transitions,we need a thorough analytical understanding of change processes in food systems.Different transition fra...
Over the past decades, the number of certified organic farms have increased significantly in Uganda. One assumption is that certified organic agriculture contributes to economic, social and ecological health of agroecosystems. In the literature, however, there is thin empirical evidence to support such claims. We therefore developed health indicato...
In response to evolving challenges, rural livelihoods have to diversify to include new on- and off-farm activities of households. However, sustainable livelihood concepts have so far not sufficiently accommodated transition dynamics. Mostly, rural livelihoods and sustainability transitions are addressed separately in the scientific literature. This...
Transitions to sustainable food systems are considered necessary to address sustainability challenges in industrial food systems – but also to achieve food and nutrition security especially in countries of the South. To facilitate such transitions, we need a thorough analytical understanding of change processes in food systems. Different transition...
Despite the substantial support of donors and development agencies, Conservation Agriculture (CA) has not moved from an invention to an innovation stage in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of the common strategy to transfer the technology from science through donors to farms in a top down manner have been disappointing (with Burkina Faso being a typ...
Considering the urgent need to make food systems more sustainable, alternative food systems (AFSs) are seen as starting points for sustainability transitions in the wider agro-food arena. AFSs include a wide array of food systems that are different from and more sustainable than the ‘conventional’ or ‘industrial’ ones. However, the literature often...
Considering the urgent need to make food systems more sustainable, alternative food systems (AFSs) are seen as starting points for sustainability transitions in the wider agro-food arena. AFSs include a wide array of food systems that are different from and more sustainable than the 'conventional' or 'industrial' ones. However, the literature often...
One of the main obstacles to the implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa is the priority given to using crop residues as cattle feed rather than mulching material. As documented in past projects (e.g. CA-SARD, CA2Africa, ABACO), in this way the CA approach will not reach its full potential - particularly in countries w...
Farmers who engage in farmer participatory research (FPR) change their established social roles in households and communities. As such, comprehension of farmers’ role transitions is important to understand the extrinsic and intrinsic factors impeding or supporting the uptake and use of FPR by farmers. The existing FPR literature, however, does not...
We suggest that institutional patterns, interests of different stakeholders and systemic constraints are critical for the innovation of conservation agriculture.
Smallholder farmers in Nepal are facing increasing problems caused by climate change. Within the action research and development project Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India and Nepal (SAF-BIN), Caritas collaborated with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, associated partners from civil society and r...
The study aims to determine soil health indicators of 46 coffee smallholder farmers in the area of Mbale, Mount Elgon region (1200m ∼ 1900m) in the southeast of Uganda. Forty of these farmers are working under an organic farmers association and are certified. They are compared to six conventional coffee production systems. The organic farms are agr...
The study aims to determine soil health indicators of 46 coffee smallholder farmers in the area of Mbale, Mount Elgon region (1200m ∼ 1900m) in the southeast of Uganda. Forty of these farmers are working under an organic farmers association and are certified. They are compared to six conventional coffee production systems. The organic farms are agr...
Considering the hazardous use of synthetic pesticides on vegetables in urban West Africa, the rationale behind this research was to analyse factors that drive or constrain changes in farming strategies at urban cabbage production sites. Understanding these factors is relevant to facilitate innovation towards healthier and more sustainable plant pro...
Considering the hazardous use of synthetic pesticides in vegetable production in urban West Africa, this research investigated the marketing potential of organic vegetables in the food vending sector of Cotonou (Benin), Accra (Ghana) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Certified organic production and marketing was examined as a potential strategy to i...
Considering the inappropriate use of synthetic pesticides on vegetables in West Africa, the rationale behind this research was to assess the extent to which consumers can function as demanders of risk reduced vegetables and hence act as innovators towards vegetable safety. Using the cases of Kumasi and Accra in Ghana, the study examined possible co...
Projects
Projects (4)
Sustainability transitions is a huge topic. This research activity focuses on transition to sustainability in food sector/system (from production, processing, distribution to consumption). The main goal of this research project is to explore the multifaceted relation between sustainability transitions in food systems (so both food production systems and food consumption patterns) and food security. It also addresses the role of innovation (incremental vs. radical; evolutionary vs. revolutionary; sustaining vs. disruptive; product vs. process vs. organizational; etc.) in transitions towards sustainability with particular attention to small-scale agriculture. The research activity also explores strategies and options to foster food sustainability transitions in different bio-physical and socio-cultural contexts.
Analysis and comparison of sustainable intensification pathways as a basis for future research priorities.
