OSMARE shares insights from fieldwork at the International Food and Policy Research Insititute (IFPRI) in Malawi 

Being an academic entails much more than just high impact publications in top ranked journals. Rob Lubberink is putting the principles of engaged scholarship into practice within the OSMARE project. As part of OSMARE he is engaging with, and provides capacity building activities for, smallholder farmers, private industry, farmer organisations, and governmental organisations in emerging economies.  Recently, Rob has shared the first insights from the OSMARE fieldwork at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Lilongwe (Malawi). For two months, OSMARE conducted ethnographic research to investigate entrepreneuring in the context of dairy farming. He touched upon the act of navigating between market and social pressures (e.g. witchcraft), and individual and collective smallholder responses to adversity. The presentation was well-received and considered an eye-opener by the different organisations in the room, even by practitioners who worked for years in dairy farming with Heifer international. IFPRI has written a blogpost based on the presentation that Rob has given. This interesting piece can be read here  Interested in research and capacity building activities regarding inclusive business models, entrepreneuring or smallholder resilience?