Dr. K.E. Giller

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Giller


Prof. Dr. Ken E. Giller

Address : Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen 
Tel. :   +31 (0)317 485818
e-mail :  
ken.giller@wur.nl

Professor of Plant Production Systems

Research

Resources for production of crops and livestock are studied, with special emphasis on the temporal and spatial dynamics of resources within farming systems (including common property) and their interactions. Central concepts are resource utilization efficiency and scaling in systems analysis. Strong focus is also placed on the role of nitrogen fixing legumes in provision of food, feed, fuel and soil fertility in tropical farming systems.

Resource dynamics show reproducible patterns across different tropical farming systems. Preferential allocation of organic resources, manure and mineral fertilizers to fields close to the homestead results in strong gradients of soil fertility decline with distance. Livestock are the central means of concentration of nutrients within farming systems, often resulting in inequitable redistribution of nutrients from common lands and poorer households to farms of richer households. Attention is given to development of principles for enhancing efficient use of scarce resources within the complex dynamics of interacting temporal and spatial scales. Managed variability in soil fertility has major effects on resource use efficiency of both nutrients and water, necessitating analysis of trade-offs at the farm rather than plot scale. The livelihoods of farming families depend on complex interactions between competing demands for investment of cash and labour both within and beyond the farm boundaries. They are particularly sensitive to opportunities for off-farm earnings through markets for produce and employment in urban centres, which forms the major opportunity for investment in agriculture. Thus the unit of analysis for research is extended beyond the farm boundary to the livelihood of the farming household.

  • N2Africa: Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa is a large scale, science research project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We use the concept of the ‘socio-ecological niche’ to identify opportunities for smallholder farmers to improve performance of their production systems using multi-purpose legumes to provide food, animal feed, and improved soil fertility. By the end of the project we will have delivered improved varieties of legumes and inoculant technologies to more than 225,000 smallholder farmers in eight countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Key opportunities for learning come from understanding what determines success in sustainable intensification in a comparative analysis across the project (see http://www.n2africa.org/ - and click on the N2Media page for videos).
  • NUANCES (Nutrient Use in Animal and Cropping Systems: Efficiencies and Scales) aims at generating an integrated framework of data bases and computer models. This framework can be used to analyse current livelihoods, explore options for their development and reveal trade-offs between objectives farmers are facing in Sub-Saharan Africa (see http://www.africanuances.nl/).
  • Competing Claims on Natural Resources: Overcoming Mismatches in Resource Use through a Multi-Scale Perspective. This interdisciplinary programme not only seeks to describe and explain resource use dynamics and competing claims, but also to actively contribute to negotiation processes between stakeholders operating at different scales (local, national, regional and global). It will explore alternatives that can contribute to more sustainable and equitable use of natural resources, and, where possible, design new technical options and institutional arrangements (see www.competingclaims.nl)
  • Nitrogen fixation by legumes in tropical cropping systems (see, the "wonderbonen" (wonderbeans) from the Noorderlicht broadcast, by VPRO television).

Teaching subjects

  •  Quantitative Analyses of Cropping and Grassland Systems (PPS-30806)
  •  Agroforestry (FEM22803)
  •  Occasional lectures to a range of (interdisciplinary) courses

Other responsibilities

  • Biological Agriculture and Horticulture - Member of the editorial board
  • CAB International - Member of the Soils Programme Advisory Committee 

Key publications

  • Giller, K.E., Tittonell, P., Rufino, M.C., Wijk, M.T.v., Zingore, S., Mapfumo, P., Adjei-Nsiah, S., Herrero, M., Chikowo, R., Corbeels, M., Rowe, E.C., Baijukya, F., Mwijage, A., Smith, J., Yeboah, E., Burg, W.J.v.d., Sanogo, O.M., Misiko, M., Ridder, N.d., Karanja, S., Kaizzi, C., K’ungu, J., Mwale, M., Nwaga, D., Pacini, C., & Vanlauwe, B. (2010) Communicating complexity: Integrated assessment of trade-offs concerning soil fertility management within African farming systems to support innovation and development. Agricultural Systems, doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2010.07.002.
  • Rufino, M.C., Dury, J., Tittonell, P., Wijk, M.T.v., Herrero, M., Zingore, S., Mapfumo, P., & Giller, K.E. (2010) Competing use of organic resources, village-level interactions between farm types and climate variability in a communal area of NE Zimbabwe. Agricultural Systems, doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2010.06.001.
  • Giller, K.E., Witter, E., Corbeels, M., & Tittonell, P. (2009) Conservation agriculture and smallholder farming in Africa: The heretics’ view. Field Crops Research, 114, 23-34.
  • Tittonell, P., van Wijk, M.T., Herrero, M., Rufino, M.C., de Ridder, N., & Giller, K.E. (2009) Beyond resource constraints – Exploring the biophysical feasibility of options for the intensification of smallholder crop-livestock systems in Vihiga district, Kenya. Agricultural Systems, 101, 1-19.
  • Giller, K.E., Rowe, E., de Ridder, N., & van Keulen, H. (2006) Resource use dynamics and interactions in the tropics: Scaling up in space and time. Agricultural Systems, 88, 8-27.
  • Giller, K.E. 2001. Nitrogen Fixation in Tropical Cropping Systems, 2nd/Ed. CAB International, Wallingford, 423 pp. 

All WUR publications since 2000

Career

Ken Giller was born (1956) near Leicester, U.K. and brought up in the north of England. Against all advice at school he chose to study Botany at Sheffield University and after a strong indoctrination in ecology continued at Sheffield for his PhD research. This was a field-based study of factors controlling the distribution of vegetation types and species in rich-fen vegetation around the Norfolk Broads. On completion of his PhD in 1982, Ken started work in soil microbiology at Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden running research projects on nitrogen fixation in various tropical production systems. These projects were based at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India and the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia.
 
In 1986 he took up a post as Lecturer at Wye College, University of London where he built up a strong research group on various aspects of soil fertility management in tropical agriculture. Projects involved collaboration with scientists in many countries in East and Southern Africa, South America and South and South-east Asia. Ken was appointed to a personal chair (professorship) of the University of London in 1996. After focusing his research in Southern Africa for several years, Ken was appointed as Professor of Soil Science at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare in 1998 where he worked until joining WUR as Chair of Plant Production Systems in September 2001.

  
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