Thomas Jayne

Thomas Jayne’s career has been devoted to working with African colleagues to respond to the continent’s major agricultural policy challenges. Jayne is University Foundation Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. He is a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA), the African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE), and a Lifetime Honorary Member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. His current work focuses on food systems resilience and transformation, land use dynamics, sustainable agricultural intensification, and youth employment. He has mentored dozens of young African professionals and supported the development of African-led agricultural policy research institutes. Thom is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute in Lusaka, Zambia, a board member of the Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes in Eastern and Southern Africa and a founding co-director of the Alliance for African Partnership at Michigan State University. In 2017, he became the Flagship Co-Leader of the CGIAR Policies, Institutions and Markets research program on Economy-wide Factors Affecting Agricultural Growth and Rural Transformation. Since 2019, Jayne has been seconded to the African Development Bank, serving as Special Advisor to the President. He has received numerous research excellence awards, including the 2009 Outstanding Article Award in Agricultural Economics and the 2017 AAEA Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis.