Paul Van Mele

Paul Van Mele is an agricultural scientist from Ghent University, Belgium, with a PhD from Wageningen University (2000). He co-authored Ants as Friends, which is now translated into five languages. He also edited Way out of the Woods; Innovations in Rural Extension; and African Seed Enterprises. Books or chapters can be downloaded from the Agro-Insight website.

From 2005 to 2010 he was Program Leader, Learning and Innovation Systems at the Africa Rice Center (formerly called WARDA). In 2009 Paul won the CGIAR award for outstanding communications based on large-scale impact of farmer-to-farmer video.

Paul has worked extensively throughout South and SE Asia, Africa, South America and the Mediterranean on projects with FAO, CABI, IPGRI, AfricaRice, IRRI and ICRISAT.

These projects have involved capacity building, assessing knowledge systems, extension through learner-centred video, facilitating institutional learning and strengthening collaboration between research, extension and end-user communities. His work has involved the extensive development of training curricula and materials.

In 2010 he set up his own enterprise Agro-Insight, focusing on communicating towards sustainable agriculture. Have a look at papers on participatory learning and farmer-to-farmer video at the Agro-Insight Resources section on Agricultural Extension. Papers on weaver ants can be found under the Resources section on Sustainable Agriculture.