Dr Bouba Traore, a Malian, is currently the Systems Agronomist for West Africa. Dr Bouba has expertise in research on integrated soil fertility management, systems modeling, and climate change analysis. Dr Bouba's work involves advanced analyses to study the effects of sustainable intensification on system productivity, soil quality, water and nutrient use efficiency, and livelihoods across diverse farming systems.
Dr Bouba worked for Malian Research Institute (IER) from 2014 to 2015 as a farming system agronomist initially based at the research Station of NTarla, Mali. Dr Bouba joined ICRISAT as a Postdoctoral Scientist from 2016 to 2019, and as Knowledge Broker specialist for climate science under BRACED project (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters). Since 2020, Bouba is based at ICRISAT-Niger as PI of GIRMA-CRS (Development of Food Security Activity) and is also working on the Africa Rising project in Mali.
Dr Bouba initially trained as an Agronomist (BSc and MSc) at Montpellier SupAgro (2002-2007), and later diversified into climate change impact analysis African farming system through a PhD (2014) in Production Ecology and Resource Conservation from Wageningen University and Research Center, The Netherlands. Bouba has extensive experience in participatory research in smallholder farming systems, with a deep understanding of the complex barriers to improved crop productivity. Dr Bouba is particularly interested in learning and managing science that develops and uses tools that combine social, economic, and biophysical aspects of farmers to improve productivity and reduce hunger for smallholder farmers in Africa.