General Information
Postdoctoral fellow Siera Vercillo's work provides new explanations of a persistent global paradox: those who grow food and who work across the food system tend to be the most food insecure. This trend persists in West African communities where she has worked in agricultural development for the past decade. This work influences her research by raising questions about development policy and practice that aims to strengthen the food security of vulnerable people but ultimately marginalizes them further. These questions also drive her scholarship into the ways that feminist, agroecological, and sovereignty approaches can progress food systems for more just and sustainable futures.
Current Research Projects
The first research project intervenes in feminist political ecology debates about the agricultural development approaches of the African Green Revolution (GR) since the 2007/08 world food price crisis, which is generally more private sector or agribusiness focused than the Green Revolutions across Asia in the 1970s-80s. This research shows the importance of decolonial approaches to farming and food security and provides new explanations of why GR oriented agri-food policy and programs aimed at women can intensify their vulnerability by not addressing political-economic and intra-household power dynamics that shape resource access. This research project incorporates empirical findings via case studies from northern Ghana into Global Affairs Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy. It was also translated for extension agents at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana and activists at the Peasant Farmer Association Ghana.
The second research project explores the political economy of food system development in ways that link rural change to urban centres in sub-Saharan Africa. This project is funded by the SSHRC Insight Development Grant where Siera also serves as the PI. The goal of the project is to advance decolonial and global food policy regimes theory that links agrarian and nutrition transitions literature to explain the globalization of local urban food systems and dietary transitions in Ghana. This research also supports advocacy for food sovereignty through connecting and building the capacity of food sovereignty organizations working across Ghana's local food system.