Social media and webcasting: Participants are encouraged to share their ideas, views and insights via social media channels using #agtalks hashtag. The virtual audience may follow the proceedings and interact with the prominent guests on the social media channels listed below and via webcasting.

The second session will benefit from the insights and experience of:

Nicole M. Mason is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University (MSU). Dr Mason has published numerous articles on agricultural input subsidy programs (ISPs) in agricultural economics and interdisciplinary journals. Her current research with collaborators in Kenya, the United States and Zambia focuses on the political economy of ISPs and the programmes’ impacts on smallholder farmers’ economic well-being, food security, and use of soil fertility management practices that have the potential to raise crop yield response to inorganic fertilizer. She teaches development economics and statistics. Prior to joining the tenure system faculty at MSU in 2013, Dr. Mason worked as a Research Fellow at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute in Zambia, for the Washington, D.C.-based Partnership to Cut Hunger & Poverty in Africa, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea.

Kari Niedfeldt-Thomas is the Senior Manager, Social Responsibility, and Executive Director, The Mosaic Company Foundation at The Mosaic Company. She leads the strategy for integrating corporate social responsibility with a diverse portfolio of partnerships, including community investment, sustainable agriculture, global food security and nutrient stewardship. She works with both internal and external stakeholder teams in Africa, the Americas and Asia. She manages the award-winning Mosaic Villages Project, which helps smallholder farmers pull their families from poverty by learning best agronomic practices and increasing yields three to five times over traditional farming methods. She also focuses on various initiatives in watershed restoration and habitat conservation. Niedfeldt-Thomas is responsible for developing innovative partnerships to address the global demand to feed more people with the same arable land area through sustainable agriculture and nutrient stewardship practices.

Pablo Tittonell is professor of the Farming Systems Ecology group at Wageningen University and one of the world's leading experts in the field of agriculture and ecology. Tittonell is an agronomist by training and an advocate for intensification of agriculture. He has worked in the private sector andin academic and research organizations. He has participated in a diversity of research and development projects around the world dealing with design, resilience and adaptation of farming systems. His career in the international research arena started at the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF) Institute of CIAT in Nairobi, Kenya, and at the University of Zimbabwe, where he ran research and educational programmes on soil fertility, conservation agriculture and agroecosystems modelling. At CIRAD (Centre de coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement) he led a research team on Systems Design and Evaluation with activities in La Réunion, Brazil, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Benin, Kenya and Zimbabwe. His group is currently coordinating major international projects, consulting for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and for three of the collaborative CGIAR programmes.