SEED - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Systems Specialist in PABRA / CIAT
Jean Claude Rubyogo is seed systems specialist in PABRA/ CIAT supporting bean seed system development and the transfer of complementary technologies toward smallholder farmers. Since 2004, he has facilitated multiple seed programs in east, west, southern and central Africa contributing to durable partnerships among CIAT, national agricultural research systems (NARS), seed entrepreneurs, farmers' organizations and development partners. This partnership model has also attracted progressively greater private investment in bean seed systems, creating novel business opportunities as well as employment. Jean Claude also currently coordinates the legume seed system research and development component of Tropical Legumes II (a Bill and Melinda Gates - supported project) covering four legumes crops (beans, chickpea, cowpea, groundnut,) in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa and India. He has extensively published on seed systems, for example, J.C. Rubyogo et al. 2010, Bean seed delivery for small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: the power of partnerships (Society and Natural Resources, 23 (4):1-18.)
Julie March is the Agriculture and Food Security Technical Advisor for the United States Agency for International Development's Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance. With a long term focus on ecology, ecological systems and farming systems, she has technically supported the integration of this kind of systems thinking into disaster response, recovery and resilience programs. Encouraging international disaster programs to move beyond early forms of seed assistance and enhancing the forms of tools and assessments used to ensure that no harm is done and that interventions contribute to sustainable systems where possible are a highlight of her role at USAID/OFDA.
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Advisor With Catholic Relief Services
Louise Sperling is a Senior Technical Advisor with Catholic Relief Services leading a program focused on strengthening vulnerable populations. She has managed and technically backstopped projects and programs in over 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Her focus is on impact-oriented plant breeding, formal and informal seed systems and pro-poor delivery approaches-with all programs embracing values of gender equity and farmer empowerment. In terms of seed systems, per se, Sperling's work encompasses ‘normal' small farmer systems as well as high stress ones: as examples, she led assessment missions during the pivotal 1983-85 drought in East Africa, after the 1994 Rwandan civil war and genocide, and immediately post-earthquake in Haiti. Widely consulting for a range of agencies (USAID/OFDA, the UN system, the World Bank, Rockefeller, northern and southern NGOs), she is the author of over seventy articles and book chapters, inter alia: Making seed systems more resilient (Global Environmental Change 2013, McGuire and Sperling) Understanding and strengthening informal seed markets (Experimental Agriculture 2010: Sperling and McGuire); Moving towards more effective seed aid (Journal of Development Studies 2008, Sperling, Cooper and Remington) and When Disaster Strikes: A guide to assessing seed system security (CIAT: 2008).
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer in the School of International Development
Shawn McGuire is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Development, at the University of East Anglia (UK). His work supports innovation in crop breeding and seed supply which helps link farmers and formal research, builds resilience to stress, and which delivers benefits to small farmers. For over 15 years and in a number of countries, his research on seed systems has combined both natural and social science, and sought to inform development policy and practice. Support for this work has come from scientific research councils, development donors, and NGOs, addressing plant breeding, conservation, and seed system development. Along with Sperling, he has helped develop the Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA) and co-led assessment missions in a range of countries (e.g. Ethiopia, DRC, Haiti) to inform both short- and long-term policy. Other work focuses on capacity development in Kenyan crop breeding, and on informal seed networks. He has written over 25 articles or book chapters: including: Making seed systems more resilient (Global Environmental Change 2013, McGuire and Sperling), Fatal Gaps in Seed Security Strategy (Food Security, 2012, Sperling and McGuire) and "Seed exchange networks for agrobiodiversity conservation: a review" (Agronomy for Sustainable Development, Pautasso et al., 2012).