ELEANOR BALCHIN

About Me

I am a PhD student and Graduate Fellow at the University of Liverpool, based at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya.

My BA in 'International Development', and MA in 'Environment, Development, and Policy' were gained from the University of Sussex in 2015 and 2016 respectively. My MRes in 'Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty' on the other hand was gained from the University of Liverpool in 2017, at the EPSRC and ESRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in 'Quantification and Management of Risk & Uncertainty in Complex Systems & Environments' at Liverpool's Institute of Risk and Uncertainty. 

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From early on in my studies I've had an interest in agriculture, natural resources, and livelihoods on the African continent; my BA dissertation titled 'Conservation through Commercialisation: The Case of Moroccan Argan Oil' considering how the commercialisation of Argan oil in Morocco was failing as a strategy for the conservation of the Argan forest, and what impact this commercialisation was having on local livelihoods.

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This interest continued into my MA, with a dissertation entitled 'A Climate Vulnerability Assessment of Smallholder Farmers in Northern Uganda' which analysed how vulnerable smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda would be to future climate change should their production methods not be adapted, and again in my MRes in which, as preparation for the upcoming PhD, I looked at financial access among smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda. 

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Now undertaking my PhD, I am working as part of an interdisciplinary team on ILRI's ZooLinK (Zoonoses in Livestock in Kenya) Project in Busia County, western Kenya. The ZooLinK project is a zoonoses surveillance project with an interest in how changes in agricultural practices (particularly the commercialisation and intensification of previously subsistence farming) will impact the burden of disease in the future. This is where my PhD comes in.

Though not dealing with zoonotic disease itself, the PhD, titled 'Farming in Transition in East Africa: Financial Risk-Taking and Agricultural Intensification' considers both financial and social risks that occur as a result of farmers attempting to intensify their livestock production. The study will be using a mixed-method longitudinal approach in the form of a Financial Diary, adapted from the Financial Diary methodology developed by Bankable Frontier Associates (see financialdiaries.com), and utilised by Julie Zollmann in the 2014 'Kenya Financial Diaries: Shilingi Kwa Shilingi- The Financial Lives of the Poor'- a significant inspiration for this PhD. Methods that will be used include financial diary interviews (cash flow statements and balance sheets), questionnaires, ethnographic interviews, observation, photography, and possibly semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Therefore, this study will provide a wealth of human side data relating to intensification, the reason farmers choose to intensify their production, and the complexities of the impacts this has on the homesteads. 

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It is hoped that several papers will be published as a result of this study on a variety of topics, such as access to finance; risk perception, experience, and mitigation; gender; financial risk-taking; and social risks, all relating back to intensification, which will be shared here following their submission to academic journals. 

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Please keep posted, papers to be uploaded later in the year!

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