Organizational Context
Producing enough food and firewood for the strongly growing Rwandan population is challenging on strongly nutrient deficient land. Coffee as the traditional major cash crop is experiencing yield decline in smallholder farms due to inappropriate fertilization and lack of mulch. The large yield gap observed in farmers’ fields is mainly caused by inefficient use of resources. The central hypothesis in this project is that resource use efficiency can be improved through soil mulching or recycling of nutrients by annual or perennial agroforestry species and exploitation of positive interactions between plant species. Tree-maize interactions (facilitation and/or competition for growth resources) will be assessed in humid and semi-arid regions of Rwanda. Benefits of in-situ mulch production of a nitrogen fixing shrub (Tephrosia vogelii) will be widely tested on a range of smallholder coffee farms. Finally, a trade-off analysis will be done around growing trees/ shrubs on farm for increased food and energy production. This study will contribute towards efforts in scaling up tree-based ecosystem approaches that enhance food security and provide biomass energy while improving resilience to climate change, an initiative of the Rwandan government.
Roles
Daily supervision will be done by the supervisors Dr. Baudron and Dr. A.G.T Schut. Prof. Giller is the overall supervisor and promoter of the PhD student.
I am responsible for collecting the data. Moreover, in cooperation with ICRAF and CIMMYT, the tree for food security project in progress has generated some data on the role of trees in the landscape. Results of this project so far can be used as a starting point by the PhD student.
In collaboration with my supervisors, I will be analysing the data collected and used in my research.
Short and long term storage
All data will be stored on my local harddisk in a folder called Thesis.
Within this Thesis folder, I'll create per chapter the folders: Data, Model, Paper and Scripts. The Data folder has two sub-folders called: Raw and Processed.
Folder contents:
- Data - Raw sub-folder: Contains all raw data and meta-data (a description of your data).
- Data - Processed sub-folder: Contains all processed data.
- Model folder: Complete listing of the model and the model results & analysis.
- Paper folder: Text of a chapter / paper.
- Scripts folder: Contains all scripts used.
The complete content of my local Thesis folder will be stored on the backup server of PPS.
During periods I'm abroad, I'll backup the complete content of my local Thesis folder to a Dropbox Thesis folder and share the contents with my supervisor(s).
All datasets used for my project, analysis reports, publications, posters.
None
Sharing and Ownership
At the end of my PhD project, my supervisors will receive a full copy of my data. Data will be made publically available at the discretion of supervisors at the end of my PhD project.
Data will be managed according to the PhD data-management plan as detailed on the phd.pps.wur.nl website, including a back-up facility of data, storage of data in structured folders per chapter and detailed documentation of data and processing. Once I leave, data will be found on the back-up facility on phd.pps.wur.nl website.
As a funder, CIMMYT's data sharing policy will be considered but without any contradiction to the WUR policy.
CIMMYT and ICRAF as partners in the "trees for food security project" may share data for the sake of the project reports.
Dr. Hae Koo Kim (CIMMYT scietist; Physiologist), will contribute in providing technical guidance on data collection and analysis on reguard to plant and tree physiology.
Dr. Frédéric Baudron (CIMMYT scientist) will be the contact person for the cooperation with CIMMYT and ICRAF in the project “trees for food security” which sponsors this research. He will make sure data collected from this research are well shared according to WUR and to the CGIAR policy.
I assume the phd.pps.wur.nl website is secure. At my work place (ICRAF campus in Rwanda), privacy and security issues are taken seriously and the CGIAR policy may apply in case of any problem.