Dr Keith Shepherd

Leader, Global Research Project - Land Health

Keith Shepherd is a Principal Soil Scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre and leads the Global Research Project: ‘Reducing risks to land health and targeting agroforestry interventions to enhance land productivity’. His research focuses on land health surveillance – an evidence-based approach to measuring and monitoring land health (including soil carbon) and associated risk factors. The land health surveillance framework is being used as a platform for the Africa Soil Information Service. To support this research, Keith has created a Soil-Plant Spectral Diagnostics Laboratory at the Centre for high throughput analysis of soil and plant samples using light (infrared, x-ray and laser spectroscopy). The unit is supporting a network of infrared spectroscopy laboratories in African national programmes.

Keith has over 30 years experience in tropical land management. He has also worked with the Centre on integrated ecological-economic modelling and nutrient balances of smallholder farm systems, and on methods for on-farm agroforestry research. Prior to this, Keith worked with: Hunting Technical Services as Chief Adaptive Research Officer on the Jebel Marra Integrated Rural Development Project in Darfur, Sudan; with the University of Reading and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on water and nutrient balances of rice-based cropping systems; with the International Centre for Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syria on growth, water use and nutrient uptake of barley in Mediterranean climates; and with the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland as Dryland Crop Agronomist for Swaziland.