Dr. Machiweyi (Machi) Kunzekweguta has joined our Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives team at JSGS as a Living Skies Postdoctoral Fellow as part of the Enhancing Food Security and Livelihoods Especially of Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa project. This international development/research project is led by Drs. Carol Henry (Professor, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition), Robert Taylor (Professor, College of Agriculture and Bioresources, Animal and Poultry Science), Matthew Noseworthy (Agriculture Canada), and JSGS’s own Marc-Andre Pigeon (Assistant Professor and CCSC Director and Strategic Fellow).
Machiweyi was awarded one of three Living Skies Postdoctoral Fellowships (LSPDF) from USask’s Office of the Vice President Research. The LSPDF is cost-shared by the Global Institute for Food Security (Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) via the Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre (P2IRC) and NUTRIEN. His award is focused on co-operative structures tying production to consumption to enhance diet diversity, gender inclusion, and food and economic security of smallholder farmers.
Working with faculty mentor Marc-Andre in collaboration with the project team, CCSC, and Co-operative Development Foundation (CDF), Machiweyi’s program explores food security, including food utilization and related nutritional concerns, and how co-operatives can scale efforts to serve an increasingly global agricultural market, starting with a scoping review of agricultural co-operatives and smallholder farmers, with special emphasis on women and sub-Saharan Africa.
Machiweyi is a passionate researcher with a strong background in developmental work. His current research explores how agricultural cooperatives benefit smallholder farmers, while assessing how social norms affect adoption of agricultural technologies and productivity among smallholder farmers. Machiweyi possesses substantial experience in working with smallholder farmers, government sectors and non-governmental organizations in Southern Africa. He recently completed his PhD in Applied economics from the University of Saskatchewan and holds a Master’s degree in Agribusiness and International Rural Development from the Lincoln University, New Zealand and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Midlands State University, Zimbabwe.