My journey

I started working in agricultural value chains by accident. After finishing my bachelor’s degree, a casual conversation with a friend led to a job opportunity in a sector I’d never thought of: coffee. I worked with coffee producers in Burundi, learning how agricultural value chains operate from the ground up. Since then, I’ve worked with coffee importers in Belgium and the Netherlands as well as international NGOs and public-private organisations on development initiatives in agriculture. My master’s thesis gave me the opportunity to return to the coffee world – researching knowledge transfer in the Tanzanian coffee value chain. Seven years down the road, my understanding of agricultural value chains and ability to tell the stories of smallholder farmers is ever-growing.