Prof. Dr. Dietrich Darr

Dr. Dietrich DARR, Research professor of sustainable and resilient farm and food systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition, Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, Germany.
Dietrich is a socio-economist interested in the analysis of smallholder agriculture and related land use decision-making in the global South; the role of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in local livelihoods and value chains; and the analysis of innovation processes in the agri-food industry. This also includes market and consumer studies for agricultural and agroforestry products. He received his doctorate from TU Dresden in 2008, with a dissertation on the diffusion of agrofor-estry innovations in East Africa. Before his current appointment he has been working as professor of agribusi-ness at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany, where he led the establishment of the Sustainable Food Systems research centre, among other responsibilities. He has also been working for a leading international management consulting firm for several years.
Among the research projects Dietrich currently leads are the EcoSiPaS project (funded by BMLEH 2022-2026) with research partners from Germany, Brazil and the USA; the SUFACHAIN project (funded by BMFTR 2022-2026) with research partners from Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; and the SusAVal project (funded by BMFTR 2023-2025), with research partners from Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Dietrich is an active member of various professional organisations such as the European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD). He serves as a member of the editorial boards of Elsevier’s Forest Policy and Economics and Trees, Forests, and People journals. He has been listed among the 2024 Top 20 scholars by expertise in agroforestry (Top Scholars by Expertise | ScholarGPS).