Dr Rufaro Madakadze is a program officer for education and training in the Program for Africas Seed System of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The aim of the Education for African Crop Improvement (EACI) initiative is to alleviate the human capital capacity constraint to increasing farmer productivity and profitability in Africa imposed by the very limited number of plant breeders needed to develop and popularize new. higher-yielding. locally adapted crop varieties.
Rufaro is a horticultural scientist trained in Michigan State University (USA) and the University of Guelph. Ontario (Canada). She has taught crop sciences at the University of Zululand. South Africa and the University of Zimbabwe for 18 years and has mentored over 10 post graduate students. She was the head of the Department of Crop Science at the University of Zimbabwe for 3 years from 2002 to 2004. She has served as an external examiner to several universities and post graduate student theses in east and southern Africa including Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania) and Africa University (Zimbabwe). University of Nairobi (Kenya) and University of KwaZulu Natal (South Africa).
She has sat on the Agriculture Panel of the National Research Foundation (an institution that supports most of the research in South Africa) evaluating proposals for funding. She is also a member of the CTA Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Afican. Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries and is currently on the planning committee of the African Crop Science Society. Dr Madakadze has worked on various projects in Horticultural Sciences that included under and post graduate students. commercial and smallholder farmers supported by DFID. EU. UNU/INRA and the Rockefeller Forum Foundation.
Add new comment