Staff

“FARMS-SAFE” (Future-proofing Antibacterial resistance Risk Management Surveillance and Stewardship in the Argentinian Farming Environment), led by the University of Bristol and Universidad Nacional De La Plata, Argentina.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat to health and development. Argentina, has well-established monitoring of medicine use and resistance withing the human health sector, but no equivalent programmes for the veterinary sector, food or environment. This project has created a surveillance structure to measure use and resistance in the dairy and pig industries and is training researchers who can continue to monitor and evaluate interventions to reduce medicine usage and AMR in the future.

“RodentGate” is a project led by the University of Antwerp, investigating the role of rodents in and around pig and poultry farms in the EU and UK as reservoirs of livestock diseases, and projecting what may happen under more stringent control of rodenticides. Ecologically-based rodent management allows controls to be precisely targeted, which requires understanding the rodent demography, life history, space use, dispersal capacities, pathogen presence and transmission patterns in the rodent population.

NRI is leading a workpackage evaluating the presence and diversity of relevant pathogens in wild rodents in and around pig and poultry farms, and has to date detected a variety of bacterial pathogens in rodents, including Leptospira, Brachyspira, Lawsonia and Salmonella,  as well as antibiotic resistant bacterial strains of Enterobacteriaceae.

The RodentGate project has been extended, in collaboration with APHA, to include a postgraduate research student who is exploring the longitudinal genetic diversity of Salmonella in rodents and pigs on a case study farm and evaluating the implications for genomic typing and surveillance.

Dr Bouvaine's current project involves the use of endosymbiotic bacteria as a novel biocontrol agent for crop pests and diseases. The aim is to exploit virulent strains of the endosymbiotic bacteria, Wolbachia, as a novel biocontrol agent for controlling the harmful insect pest, whitefly, in order to protect African cassava from destructive whitefly-transmitted plant viruses. The whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, is one of the most devastating agricultural pests for poor farmers over the last three decades owing to its wide geographic spread, the diverse ways that it damages crops, its capacity to develop resistance to insecticides, and, perhaps most significantly, its ability to transmit over 110 plant viruses that cause devastating crop disease pandemics worldwide. Amongst the most important of these viruses of recent times, cassava brown streak viruses (CBSVs), which cause cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), threaten the food security of over 40 million cassava-dependent poor in eastern Africa because the disease causes complete rotting of infected tubers. The lack of disease-resistant varieties and alternative whitefly control options such as insecticides (either unavailable or too expensive for many African farmers) leaves producers completely vulnerable to the damages caused by whitefly-transmitted CBSV.

• FCDO (formerly DFID) 2009-2012 Assessing the Impact and Governance of Sustainability Certification and Labelling Schemes focussing on the impact on smallholders and workers of Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance certified tea and cocoa in Kenya, India, Ghana and Ecuador. Overall methodological support (design, sampling, baselines, questionnaire design and analysis) for the project
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 2008-2013, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi. Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA) project. Coordinator of Monitoring & Evaluation and Gender analysis and learning. Development of programme level M&E and impact assessment methodology, including country specific frameworks and indicators and design of baseline studies and monitoring formats. Design of gender and diversity analysis methodology and implementation of gender studies in cassava value chains.
• ESRC 2007-2010. Kenya. Governance implications of private standards initiatives in agri-food chains. Examination of the role and effects of private standards initiatives on their evolution and on key actors in the value chain. Contributed to stakeholder workshops with government, NGO and private sector groups.
• FCDO (formerly DFID) 2007-2011 Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa'. SCARDA. Development of the programme gender strategy and advice on M&E. Contribution to the methodology for institutional analysis and facilitation of the institutional analysis of the Crops Research Institute. In Ghana, facilitated the institutional analysis of the Crops Research Institute, CSIR, the Ghanaian focal institution for the programme to identify capacity strengthening needs and an agenda for organisational change. Conducted participatory workshops and interviews and stakeholder consultations to identify capacity strengthening needs.
• EC FP6 2006 – 2011 Ghana and Egypt. 'Sustainable Water management Improves Tomorrow's Cities' Health' (SWITCH). Establishing a new paradigm for integrated urban water management, using a 'learning alliance' approach. Management of NRI inputs to governance, learning alliance, social inclusion and urban agriculture research areas. Design and implementation of social inclusion and urban agriculture training for project teams and research conducted at demonstration sites in Accra and Alexandria.
• 2008-2013: Management of the Monitoring, Evaluation, gender and communication components of the project Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA) which is developing cassava value chains in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi. Responsible for design and management of project's M&E and learning, gender analysis and communications, including impact assessment methodology, country frameworks and baseline studies (for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).