Ollenburger Mo (Mary)
Professionnal title : Researcher
Scientific fields : Agricultural Systems Food Systems Modelling smallholder farming
Main affiliation : Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota
Contact by mail
I'm an interdisciplinary food and farming systems scientist, currently at the Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, USA.
Presentation
I use models to answer questions, but I'm not "a modeler". I'm most interested in using "good enough" models to help people make better decisions.I have worked at a range of scales, from field-level crop models to global integrated assessment models. My current work is based around the Food System Supply-chain Sustainability (Foods cubed) platform, which estimates supply chain connections for commodity crops in the continental USA. We use county-level estimates of emissions, water use, and biodiversity impacts and connect those to the industries and companies who use those crops to produce beef, chicken, pork, dairy, and biofuels. This can show which stakeholders are connected to a landscape, opening up opportunities for collaboration along the value chain.
I have a PhD in Farming Systems Analysis from Wageningen University, where I worked with smallholder farmers in southern Mali to find innovative ways to use the resources on the landscape to improve livelihoods. During my MSc in Crop and Soil Science from Michigan State University, I did crop modeling for perennial grains in the USA and maize-pigeonpea systems in Malawi.