Overview

Director: Prof Beatrice Conradie

Current SSU Researchers

Nicoli Nattrass

Nicoli works on the political-economy of labour-intensive growth and on human-wildlife conflict in the Karoo.

Jed Stephens

Jed Stephens is a Masters of Science student in the Department of Statistical Sciences. He has completed research with the CSSR and iCWild on the Khayelitsha Rodent Study (KRS) between 2017 and 2018. His current research is about the Karoo region in farm productivity (with Professor Beatrice Conradie) and predators (jointly with Professor Nicoli Nattrass and Conradie). In 2019 he collaborated on three journal articles in the CSSR: one now published, one accepted and the third currently under review.

Jenifer Piesse

Professor Piesse has collaborated with Beatrice on productivity and other projects since 2009. She is professor in Financial Economics in the Business School in Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. Her speciality is African stock markets but as extraordinary professor in Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University, Jenny also has substantial expertise in sub-Saharan agriculture. In 2018 she won the best publication prize of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa with a paper co-authored with Beatrice, Colin and Nick Vink of Stellenbosch University.

Colin Thirtle

Emeritus Professor Colin Thirtle of Imperial College London compiled the first productivity index for South African agriculture in the early 1990s. Similar indices for neighbouring countries soon followed. Colin held professorships in Agricultural Development Economics at Reading University, and Wye College and Imperial College, London. He is an extraordinary professor of Agricultural Economics at Pretoria and Stellenbosch. Beatrice began to work with Colin in 2006 and although now recommended for more for fishing than econometric modelling, Colin continues to advise on SSU productivity projects. Collin won the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa’s best publication award six times during the past 25 years including most recently in 2018 with Beatrice, Jenny and Nick Vink. In 2011 he delivered the Simon Brand Memorial Lecture of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa.

Jan Greyling

Dr Greyling is a lecturer in Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University where he is specialised in production economics, optimisation and risk and decision making. Jan works on long term agricultural development, technology and interdisciplinary data-intensive research in agriculture. He leads the faculty’s AgroInformatics project and is the local coordinator of the science, technology and innovation (STI) projects within the Centre for Agricultural Transformation (CAT) in Malawi. He is also involved in a collaboration between the NRF and the Swiss National Science Foundation (FNSNF).

Jen Cleary

Jen is an honours student in Economics in 2019. Her thesis is on the effect of climate on farm productivity at Langgewens Experiment Farm.

Jeremy Seekings

Jeremy is a researcher in the SSU as well as ​Director of the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa and Professor of Political Studies and Sociology. His research is inter-disciplinary, extending across history (especially economic history), politics, sociology and economics. In the 1990s and 2000s most of his work focused on South Africa. Over the past decade it has extended to more comparative work, including in Brazil, the Caribbean and other parts of Africa. He runs a major project on Legislating and Implementing Welfare Policy Reforms (LIWPR) in Africa. Recent SSU Working Papers include: The quality of South African wage data: accounting for deductions, debt and disclosure, Trade unions and the redesign of South Africa’s minimum wage-setting institutions in the 1990s and Minimum wage-setting by the Employment Conditions Commission in South Africa, 1999-2015.

Ben Rideout
Ben is an honours student in Economics in 2019. His thesis is on the effect of climate on farm productivity in the Karoo.

Georgina Richards

Georgina is an honours student in Economics in 2019. Her thesis is on total factor productivity of sugar cane producers in South Africa.

Craig Eckleton

Craig is an honours student in Economics in 2019. His thesis is on the impact of drought on grass-fed dairy farms in the Eastern Cape.

Rebecca Dube

Rebecca is working on a Masters in economics that examines total factor productivity differences in Zimbabwean manufacturing.

Johan Strauss

Doctor Strauss is an agronomist with the Western Cape Department of Agriculture at Elsenburg. He directs the Langgewens crop rotation trial and chairs the organisation Conservation Agriculture Western Cape.

Nicole Wagner

Nicole is an agricultural economist with the Western Cape Department of Agriculture at Elsenburg. She is studying productivity changes in the Langgewens crop rotation experiment.

Stefan Theron

Stefan is with Land Care in the Western Cape Department of Agriculture at Beaufort West. Stefan works with Beatrice to develop grazing indices for the Karoo.