Shaun Ferris

Over the past 30 years, Dr. Ferris has been supporting the development, implementation and innovation of agricultural development programs for USAID, USDA, GFRAS, CTA, FAO, UNCTAD, DFID, IFAD, and the Work Bank. As the Global Director for CRS’ Agricultural Livelihoods programs, Dr. Ferris focuses on supporting smallholder farmers along the pathway to prosperity, to recover from economic or environmental shocks, build their agricultural practices and grow into agipreneurs fully engaged and empowered in their value chains.

In addition to overall technical leadership of CRS in this area, Shaun’s work also focuses on building the agro-enterprise capacity of field staff and creating opportunities to generate increased value at the farm level through new combinations of skills acquisition, technology, market opportunity identification, improve market information use, and improved trading relationships. Previous to working with CRS, Dr. Ferris spent 16 years with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research. Shaun holds a Bachelor’s in Horticultural Science from Reading University, a Master’s in Tropical Agriculture from Nottingham University and a PhD in Plant Physiology from Cranfield University.