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2 PhD positions in Climate Smart Agriculture East Africa Program

The majority of people in East Africa who are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods will experience an increased vulnerability due to climate variability and change.

The Climate Smart Agriculture, East Africa (CSA-EA) program funded by the Dutch Government will promote climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as a way to transform and reorient agricultural systems to the new realities of climate change. The proposed program will use an inclusive business development approach for CSA in arable farming in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It will thereby contribute to the availability of climate resilient and sustainably produced food for the growing population in East Africa.

The program will deliver impact in the following areas: 

  • Productive capacity and income increased for 300,000 smallholder farmers; 
  • Business performance improved for 50 agribusiness SMEs and 30 cooperatives for climate-proof value chains; 
  • Climate resilient sustainable food production practiced on 600,000 hectares with more carbon, energy, and water efficient production systems.

The implementation strategy of the CSA-East Africa program is based on complementary interventions at three levels: (a) farming systems, (b) inclusive value chains, and (c) the enabling environment.

This five year program will be implemented by SNV (Netherlands Development Organization) in partnership with Wageningen University and Research (WUR); the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); Agriterra; and Rabo Partnerships.

Within this exciting program there are opportunities for the placement of two PhD students. The research of the PhD students will focus on identifying the main impact of CSA interventions on developing more resilient farming systems and value chains. One of the students will study the impact of CSA interventions on climate resilience of the farming systems, value chains and policies from a financial/economic perspective while the other student will focus on the environmental and biophysical impacts.

Both PhD students will be enrolled in one of the graduate schools of Wageningen University. The PhD students are expected to spend about 18 months in Wageningen, the Netherlands and 30 months in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and/or Uganda).

The students will be supervised by staff from Wageningen University and staff from CCAFS, and will fulfil tasks under the CSA-EA program and its operational and management structure to ensure that all research contributes directly to the overall goal and objectives of the CSA-EA program. PhD research will be embedded in the project and PhDs will elaborate on preliminary findings from (other) project activities and will be supportive to these activities. Both PhD are expected to collaborate closely with each other.

PhD 1: Impact of the implementation of different CSA interventions on economic and climate resilience performance at farm-household, value chains and community/landscape level.

PhD 2: Impact of large scale implementation of CSA interventions on climate resilience of different value chains and farming systems from an agricultural production and environmental perspective.

For further information consult the document attached.