PhD Seminar: Stefan Schüller's first-year seminar

Stefan Schüller is a doctoral student at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) and a PhD researcher within the PERENNIAL project funded by the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant 2023).

The project investigates whether a shift from annual to perennial grain crops as the basis for food production is possible, and what the major opportunities and obstacles for such a ‘perennial revolution’ in agriculture are. As part of the project, he will focus on exposing and better understanding the current political economy of agriculture and its (deliberate) dependence on annual grain crops, while subsequently exploring what potential strategies for change could look like.

Stefan holds a bachelor’s degree in International Land & Water Management from Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and a master’s degree in Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. For several years, he has worked on agricultural development and land restoration efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa, first for a Dutch human rights and environmental organisation and later as a lecturer & researcher at WUR.

He has a passion for participatory approaches to tackling land degradation and restoring soil fertility on the one hand, and incorporating agroecological principles into the development of sustainable farming systems on the other.