PROFILE

Featured in this issue

1. Ms Heike Hoeffler

2. Dr. Ephraim Nkonya

MS HEIKE HOEFFLER

An agricultural economist by profession, Heike Hoeffler finished her studies in 2001 at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany (Master thesis: “Food Market Liberalisation in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from the Kenyan Dairy Sub-sector”, which won the Hans H. Ruthenberg-Award for an outstanding research contribution to World Food Security 2002). By then, Heike had gained some experiences in the field of practical farming (www.klostergut-heiningen.info), agricultural research (at Humboldt University and Universidad de Granma, Cuba), German development cooperation, non-governmental work (www.oroverde.de) and German parliamentary work at the Parliamentary Committee for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. She then joined the 37th post-graduate training course for development cooperation at the German Development Institute.

In 2002, Heike joined GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) for practical agricultural development work. From January 2003 to April 2008, she worked as an adviser to the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture for the implementation of the Kenyan agricultural policy reform agenda (“Strategy for Revitalising Agriculture – SRA”) and the bilateral programme "Private Sector Promotion in Agriculture - PSDA". She gained an expertise in the areas of agricultural policy implementation and agricultural value chain promotion; not only in Kenya, but also within Africa wide professional networks. She initiated the GTZ Africa-wide working group on sustainable agribusiness, which is a network of practitioners dealing with private sector development in agriculture by implementing value chain and local economic development projects and programmes (www.gtz.de/snrd). In March 2007, Heike started her part-time PhD at the Institute for African Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany, in collaboration with Tegemeo Institute, Egerton University, Kenya (Title “Poverty Impacts of Agricultural Value Chains – A Q-squared Analysis of rural Poverty Dynamics in Kenya”).

Since mid 2008 she is based in Bonn, Germany, and continues her PhD research (with the kind support from the Poverty, Equity and Growth Network PEGNet) and works as a consultant for international agricultural development for various organisations (GTZ, Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NEPAD-CAADP, etc.). Her main areas of expertise are agricultural value chains, food price developments, agricultural markets, sector-wide donor approaches and policy impacts on rural poverty over and above developing mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to measure, to monitor and to evaluate rural poverty impacts.
E-Mail: hhoeffler@web.de

Publications and Conference Presentations (selection)

• 2009. (with B. Owuor) High Commodity Prices – Who get’s the Money? A Case Study on the Impact of High Food and Factor Prices on Kenyan Farmers. Discussion Paper, Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, Berlin, Germany. (www.hbfha.com/web/index-146.html)
• 2008. (with M. Will, L. Vogelzang, & M. Wanyonyi) Capacity Development Concept for Value Chain Development. GTZ and Ministry of Agriculture Kenya publication. Nairobi, Kenya.
• 2008. Increasing Food Prices on the World Market: What is the Impact on Farmers in Developing Countries? A brief Look at Mexico, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Cambodia. Rapid Survey for the GTZ Working Group on Food Crisis, GTZ, Eschborn, Germany.
• 2008. The Relevance of Agricultural Value Chain Promotion for Poverty Reduction –
  A brief Look at Practicioners‘ Perspectives. Presentation at the Poverty Reduction, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet) Conference 2008: Assessing Development Impact – Learning from Experience. September 11-12 2008, Accra, Ghana. (http://www.pegnet.ifw-kiel.de/conference-2008-paper/hoeffler.pdf)
  
• 2008. Gender Implications of Rising Commodity Prices. Paper Presentation at Humboldt University Berlin, Workshop on Gender and Globalisation, June 24, 2008, Berlin.
  
• 2007. How can rural producers in Africa become more competitive in the face of globalisation and supply chain integration? Panel Discussant at the 2nd European Forum on Sustainable Rural Development, June 18-21, 2007, Berlin, Germany. http://www.ruralforum.info/en/documentation/inputs)
  
• 2007. (with H. Asche) Direct Interventions to strengthen the ability of the poor to participate in the economy. Presentation and Discussant at the International Conference “Value chains for broad-based development”, May 30-31 2007, Berlin, Germany.
  
• 2007. (mit S. Ouma & D. Guenther) Implementing a QMS for EurepGAP standard certification under option 2: Lessons learned from the Kenyan pilot project and a way forward, PSDA publication, Ministry of Agriculture, Nairobi, Kenya.
  
• 2006. Promoting the Kenyan Potato Value Chain: Can Contract Farming help build trust and reduce transaction risks? in Fritz, M., Rickert, U. & Schiefer, G. (eds.) (2006): Trust and Risks in Business Networks. Proceedings of the 99th European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE), February 2006, Bonn, Germany, pp. 517-27.
  
• 2006. (with K. Strohm) Contract Farming in Kenya: Theory, Evidence from selected Value Chains and implications for Development Cooperation. Ministry of Agriculture publication, Nairobi, Kenya.
  
• 2005. (with G. Maingi) Rural Urban Linkages in Practice: Promoting agricultural Value Chains. Entwicklung und Ländlicher Raum, Vol. 39, 05/2005, pp. 26-28. (http://archiv.rural-development.de/fileadmin/rural-development/volltexte/2005/05/ELR_dt_26-28.pdf)

Also available in French:

• Liens entre milieu rural et milieu urbain en pratique: Promotion des chaînes de valorisation de l’agriculture. Agriculture et Développement rural; Développement économique en milieu rural, Vol. 13 No 2/2006, pp. 62-64. (www.ruralforum.info/documents/presentations/further_ressources/hoeffler_value-chains_fr.pdf)

Heike is an efficient, timely and through reviewer for AJFAND. We value her friendship and support. Thank you Heike and Happy New Year. Ed.