Welcome to the division “Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development” of the University of Hohenheim. The goal of our division is to contribute to agricultural development through research, teaching and policy dialogue on the social, institutional and political dimensions of agriculture in developing countries. Our focus is interdisciplinary, combining research approaches developed in agricultural and institutional economics, history, rural sociology and political science.
Our work is guided by the vision of a future world agriculture that is able to feed a growing world population, to use its unique potential to contribute to poverty reduction, to provide environmental services instead of overusing natural resources. To fulfill this vision, agricultural development will have to rely on empowered rural communities, functioning markets that are accessible to smallholder farmers; and an effective and responsive state that is able to address market failures and provide the public goods and services on which agricultural development depends.
For our studies, we use innovative qualitative research methods, which we complement in some of our projects with quantitative methods. For example, we have used “Process Net-Map”, a participatory mapping method, to analyze the governance challenges of agricultural mechanisation and seed markets in Ghana. In Brazil, we have applied the same method to study sugarcane value webs and the emerging Bioeconomy. We have also designed experimental games, for example, to study corruption in India and veterinary services in Uganda.
To realize our mission of contributing to the development of smallholder agriculture, we consider it important to work together with partners from different disciplines. In this regard, we use the advantage of being part of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute). With its ten divisions – ranging from agroecology, crop and animal sciences to agricultural engineering – the Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute provides ample scope for interdisciplinary research. One such example is our research in Costa Rica where we have combined socioeconomic and agro-ecological methods to study carbon neutral coffee value chains.
Beyond the University of Hohenheim, we collaborate with renowned national and international partners. For example, we have collaborated with the University of Media (Stuttgart) to develop a smartphone app to record the time use and nutrition of farm households in rural Zambia. In a joint project with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), we have investigated agricultural policy beliefs in Ghana and Uganda.
