项目介绍

2024年4月24日

Function

Are you a talented aspiring researcher with an interest in biophysical and social aspects of regenerative agriculture? Are you curious whether contract farming can improve livelihoods and (re-)investments in sustainable agriculture? Do you enjoy doing integrative transdisciplinary research to understand and improve land and water management decisions? Then this may be the right opportunity for you!

Join the TSARA project, a collaborative effort between Soil Physics and Land Management group (SLM) and Water Resources Management group (WRM) aimed at transforming agricultural systems in the Isandra District of Madagascar’s Haute Matsiatra region. TSARA, which stands for “Transformation des systèmes agricoles avec du riz et de l’artemisia”, is a public-private partnership project. It aims to develop integrated farmer-centred business propositions for outgrowers of rice and artemisia annua in rotation with food crops that will create work and better income opportunities for smallholder farmers (in particular women and youth) in the Isandra District of Haute Matsiatra region, Madagascar. Within this project, executed in collaboration with two enterprises, respectively supporting artemisia and rice value chain development, and the regional government, Wageningen University acts as knowledge partner and will provide technical assistance as well as focusing on impact assessment of project interventions.
In this PhD position you will perform a central role in the project by engaging in participatory action research underpinning a co-learning approach through which insights from research are continuously fed back into project activities and processes.

You will focus on and cross-link several lines of inquiry, including:
1) understanding current land and water management practices performed by smallholder farmers, and whether improved practices promoted by the project lead to better productivity and soil health;
2) assessing who engages in the contracted production of artemisia and rice, and to what extent this engagement leads to sustainable reinvestment in regenerative farming practices;
3) take a broader landscape view on the agroecological restoration, assessing whether catchment restoration actions can support farming system transformation.

Additionally, you will be conducting field experiments to assess soil health, water balance impacts and agricultural productivity, and use ethnographic and interactive research methods to document perceived outcomes of engaging in contract farming and adoption of regenerative agricultural practices. You will pay attention to different scales: plant-plot-landscape-region, and temporally from seasonal cropping decisions to scenario development on longer temporal scales.

As PhD candidate you will contribute to impact assessment of the project interventions and approaches and providing recommendations for improvement and upscaling.

Function Requirements

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Designing and implementing the participatory action research;
• Impact assessment of project activities;
• Develop the findings into a dissertation on farming system transformations through contract farming.         

You have:

• an MSc degree in agronomy, land and water management, agroecology, rural development or related field;
• experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative field research in agricultural areas in resource-poor settings;
• the ability to work in a multidisciplinary team and engage with agri-business developers and smallholder farmers;
• willingness to live/spend significant time in the Southern Highlands of Madagascar (Fianarantsoa);
• proficiency in French or Malagasy is desirable.

For this position your command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognised Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here.

Contactinformation

For more information about this position, please contact Dr. Luuk Fleskens, by e-mail: luuk.fleskens@wur.nl, telephone +31 317 485467 or Dr. Gert Jan Veldwisch by e-mail: gertjan.veldwisch@wur.nl.

For more information about the procedure, please contact  Noorien Abbas, corporate recruiter, by email: noorien.abbas@wur.nl.