Malin Olofsson

Malin Olofsson defended her PhD thesis “Dynamics of agrarian change at a commodity frontier: Differentiation and accumulation trajectories amongst smallholder tree-crop farmers in South Africa” in 2023 at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focused on the emerging political and social dynamics of expanding tree-crops commodification amongst smallholders in Venda, South Africa. She holds an MA in Agrarian and Environmental Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University. She has over a decade of experience working in the development sector across Africa, primarily in the areas of workers’ rights, smallholder farmers development, certification and small business development. 

Malin Olofsson is a researcher in inSALSA (Increasing Sustainability of Agribiologicals by Living Labs in sub-Saharan Africa). This project aims to enhance the adoption of agricultural biologicals (this refers to living and naturally derived products to enhance crop production and protection) amongst smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa. Through living labs in Kenya and South Africa with a replication lab in Ethiopia, the project brings stakeholders together to learn, test, and innovate in equitable and inclusive ways. 

Olofsson M. (2023). South Africa and social mobilisation for LFFU in Gupta, G., Hogenboom, B., Rempel, A. and Olofsson, M. (Eds). Leaving Fossil Fuels Underground: Arguments and Approaches in the Global North and Global South. Amsterdam University Press.

Olofsson, M & Van Leynseele, Y. (2022) Unpacking land-associated assemblages ‘from below’: Smallholders' land access strategies at the commercial tree-crop frontier. Journal of Political Geography, 100, 102792.

Olofsson, M., Ros-Tonen, M., Gupta, J., de Steenhuijsen Piters, B., & Van Leynseele, Y. (2021). Rethinking the divide: Exploring the interdependence between global and nested local markets. Journal of Rural Studies, 83, 60-70.

Olofsson, M. (2021). Expanding commodity frontiers and the emergence of customary land markets: A case study of tree-crop farming in Venda, South Africa. Land Use Policy, 101, 105203.

Olofsson, M. (2020). Socio‐economic differentiation from a class‐analytic perspective: The case of smallholder tree‐crop farmers in Limpopo, South Africa. Journal of Agrarian Change, 20(1), 37-59.