Dr Albert Mvula

Biography

Albert Mvula is an interdisciplinary researcher with background in sustainable catchment and land resources management. Albert’s research interests include sustainability of climate-smart agriculture systems, natural resources management regimes and rural livelihoods. Since 2015, Albert’s work focused on the application of social-ecological systems in conservation agriculture systems among smallholder farmers, watershed and catchment management and rural development in the Sub-Saharan countries. He has spent most of his time with resource-constrained farmers in Malawi, exploring how farmers’ socio-economic and ecological conditions influence the uptake, adoption, and sustenance of sustainable farming methods.

Albert coordinated the University of Worcester’s Functional Landscape Approach (FLA) postdoctoral project in Malawi that tested the implementation process of the FLA as an innovative way of striking a balance among sustainable wetland and catchment management and people’s livelihoods improvement. He has provided FLA training to Self-Help Africa Uganda staff and partners working on a project called Striking a Balance: Developing a Green Economy around Lake Bunyonyi. Prior to his PhD in 2017, he conducted a project evaluation for Tiyeni Malawi’s Deep Bed Farming system which formed the basis for his doctoral study.

Currently, Albert is working on University of Aberdeen’s Farm Tree project: Balancing farm and landscape-scale demands for integrating trees on agricultural land, a project funded by the UK Research and Innovation under its Future of UK Treescapes programme. The project explores the most effective ways to expand the UK's trees, hedgerows, woodlands, and forests in rural settings by building on existing agroforestry initiatives and developing practical tools for farmers, land managers and policy makers to enhance the expansion of trees on agricultural land.