SeedNL to welcome new team member
SeedNL is thrilled to welcome a new member to the team: Marijke Zonnenberg has started as project officer based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In this interview, we talk with her about her background, position at SeedNL and how the transition to working from Ethiopia has been so far.
Could you please introduce yourself to the SeedNL community?
My name is Marijke Zonnenberg, I was born and raised in the Netherlands and studied Food Safety and Development & Rural Innovation at Wageningen University. My passion has always been food: trying out new food products, both in the Netherlands or when abroad, going to restaurants and understanding what role food plays in a household, community and culture. This was the reason why I chose to study in Wageningen, which has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Wageningen was a wonderful place to study with a lot of like-minded people, many international students and research collaborations, and innovative research. It still makes me proud to see how well-known the university is when you meet new people abroad, especially in the food & agriculture community.
Can you tell us what you will be working on for SeedNL?
A core component of SeedNL is to act as a knowledge hub for stakeholders in the seed sector and share knowledge and expertise across these stakeholders. Over the next year, we want to more systematically draw lessons learnt from the different seed sector development projects, and share these best practices across the different projects and partnerships. SeedNL supports two flagship projects in Ethiopia (ENSP) and Nigeria (NNSP) and several other seed sector projects in a.o. Uganda, Mali and Niger, and we aim to analyse in each of these partnerships how the partners work together, and how we can use lessons learnt and best practices from these partnerships to strengthen the existing partnerships, as well as initiate new ones. My role will be strongly focused on this learning agenda, as well as to further strengthen SeedNL’s communication and support in the organisation of events.
In addition to SeedNL, you are working for Resilience on the Ethiopia-Netherlands Seed Partnership. Can you elaborate more on this?
The Ethiopia-Netherlands Seed Partnership (ENSP) is one of the flagship projects of SeedNL and is focused on strengthening the seed sector in Ethiopia to deliver more high quality seeds to farmers. Resilience is implementing the private sector component of this partnership and supports amongst others six seed value chains that are important for food and nutrition security. My role is to further develop the activities with these value chains by for example brokering deals with processing companies that experience a seed gap.
Your position is part of the Young Expert Programmes (YEP) – can you explain what this programme entails?
YEP offers young professionals the opportunity to start their careers in an international environment and work on their personal development simultaneously. The objective of the programme is to build a young and inspiring international network and build expertise in the areas of Agrofood, Water and Energy. We started this programme with three weeks of trainings in the Netherlands that were focused on personal development and getting to know the group of Dutch and International YEP’pers better. After the trainings, all YEP’pers ‘flew out’ to their work location but we will meet regularly for additional trainings, masterclasses or to catch-up. Furthermore, everyone has a YEP coach, in addition to a supervisor and mentor, that supports you in your personal development throughout the YEP trajectory.
You have recently moved to Ethiopia and will be based there for the coming years. How has the adjustment been?
So far the transition has been very smooth and my colleagues here have been super welcoming. Our office is based in the Dutch hub, a co-working space with other Dutch companies, so it’s a very social and intercultural place where I really feel at home. And the coffee is delicious here! It has been a life-long dream to live abroad for a while so I feel very grateful to have the opportunity to be here and hope to see many different parts of the country during my time here.
What is your ambition and wish for the seed sector and its development over the next years?
The seed sector is basically the foundation of our livelihoods, as there would be no food without seeds so everyone benefits from a strong seed sector. I am very much inspired by SeedNL’s mission to improve access to seeds for all farmers, and especially to ensure that the seed system can deliver the right seeds at the right time. With the additional complexity of climate change and conflicts, it will be a big challenge to develop seed systems in a sustainable way, but I am convinced that through working together, by building connections between formal and informal sectors, and between Dutch and local partners, we are able to create both a strong seed and food system. And I can’t wait to contribute to this!
We wish Marijke all the best in her new role and we welcome our community to reach out to her for any further information on her role or SeedNL.