Christian, Mzuyanda
Prof Mzuyanda Christian is an agricultural economist and currently serve as an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics in the School of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Mpumalanga (UMP). His excellent research has earned him an h-index of 10 and an i10-index of 10 (Google Scholar). He has published 22 peer-reviewed journal articles and 5 conference proceedings.
Prof Christian‘s research areas are in Agricultural Development, Agricultural policy, Agribusiness Management, Agripreneurship, Collective action and Agricultural cooperatives. He has presented on various forums, local and international academic conferences on agricultural economic research and contributed to policy development and formulation of issues facing the African economies. While sustaining a coherent and focused research niche in agricultural economics, He reviews research manuscripts for several local and international journals and conferences namely International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA), Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE), South African Association of Agricultural Extension (SASAE), and International Conference on Business Models in Agriculture among others. Prof Christian is also a peer reviewer of the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa. He assists with evaluation of the proposals submitted for research funding. Prof Christian is currently funded by the National Research Foundation - Thuthuka Rating Track (TTK23041392782) for his research project where he is focusing on land abandonment and climate change. He is also involved in the Knowledge Platform on Inclusive Development Policies (INCLUDE) project that focuses on green jobs for youth in a just food systems transition. He attended and participated in the 5 day SETI workshop that took place at UCT as well as the SETI-EfD workshop that took place in Sweden.
Prof Christian has successfully supervised 11 Master’s dissertations and 4 Doctoral theses; externally examined masters dissertations for various South African universities (10 MSc from the 5 Universities in South Africa). He is currently involved in the supervision and mentoring of students since 2019. Additionally, he teaches across various degree programmes in the School. His main teaching fields are agribusiness management, production economics, agricultural development and agricultural policy analysis and food security. In recognition of his teaching excellence, Prof Christian was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award for 2022 at a prestigious event hosted by North West University (NWU) held in Mahikeng. Furthermore, for his outstanding contributions through research and his work with his NPO, Prof. Christian received the Mail & Guardian Greening the Future Award in 2024 at a distinguished event held in Sandton, South Africa.
