I worked for twelve years with Practical Action, specializing in policy research and action research in the field of food and agriculture , natural resource management and sustainable rural livelihoods Coming from a highly qualified research background in social sciences, I published through Practical Action Publishing on a range of development topics and methods. I am fluent in written and spoken Spanish and have a proven track record of excellent intercultural collaborations in Latin America, Eastern and Southern Africa and South Asia, from grassroots to international policy level and working to make the connections from local through to meso, national, regional and global institutions.

I was responsible for policy and advocacy at Practical Action, leading on Food Security, Food Sovereignty , Models of Agricultural Production and Alternative Agricultural Extension Models. I was the Team Leader for formulation and capacity building on Practical Action’s Agriculture Policy Narrative, formulated between 2009 and 2011 and adopted in 2011. It required a systematic analysis of all major agriculture policy documents made by UN agencies, AU, EU, US, UK, World Bank, NGOs and Social Movements in the last 3 year. The document also integrated thinking on agricultural biodiversity, climate change (adaptive capacity), local governance and access to energy into the broader discussion on the transition to agro-ecological production models. As the leader of a team which made Practical Action a recognized leading authority on agro-ecology and Food Sovereignty in the NGO sector, I coordinated support other NGOs in the UK and Africa to interpret the “Feeding the 9 billion” policy narratives and how they should orientate their future programme work. As well as informal advisory sessions and discussion this included two formal reports, one for Trocaire in 2011 and another for Concern Worldwide in 2012. As a result I have identified a number of key policy research areas that require more attention and analysis, for example the causes and consequences of the high percentage of national agriculture budgets being spent on imported fertilizer in developing countries, and how to incentivise more sustainable alternatives

In terms of policy research I was the principle researcher and author of “Negotiating the Seed Treaty” an account of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – through which I gained technical understanding and policy expertise on issues of international seed policy: inter alia the functioning of seed banks, in situ conservation and intellectual property rights on seed varieties. The publication now forms part of the core reading material on the FAO’s own capacity building training on the implementation of the Treaty.

I also gain first hand understanding of small scale farming and food provision due to role as principle international adviser to EU funded Food Security Projects in Sudan, Bangladesh and Zambia. From 2008 to 2010 I undertook a two year ex-post review and evaluation of Practical Action Food Security projects, particularly on the impact of farmer to farmer extension and service provision models.

Also in the period 2008 to 2012 I was involved in a new cycle of Practical Action multi partner policy initiatives linking EU and African civil society and farmers organizations: the Coalition of European Lobbies on East African Pastoralism, Europe-Africa Towards Food Sovereignty (involving EAFF and ROPPA) and Including Smallholder Farmers in Agricultural Research for Development (involving PELUM and ESAFF), participating in a number of policy dialogues especially with EU and member states on shifting development investment towards facilitation of ecological production methods