Contributor Biographies | Market Risk in Rice

Dr. Ramesh Chand

Dr. Chand is the Director of the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP). Dr Chand has worked at ICAR since 2006 and has a Ph. D. in Agricultural Economics from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India, New Delhi. With more than 25 years experience in research and teaching, he has also worked in senior academic positions as Professor and Head – Agricultural Economics Unit, at Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University; Professor of Marketing at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; Principal Scientist at NCAP; and Acting Director NCAP. He has international experience as Visiting Professor at University of Wollongong, NSW Australia (2000) and Visiting Fellow at Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba Shi, Japan (2003). His Ph.D. thesis, submitted to Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, was selected for Jawaharlal Nehru Award of Indian Council of Agricultural Research in recognition of its outstanding Research contributions. Dr. Chand has worked as consultant for FAO, UNDP, ESCAP, and World Bank. At present engaged in research on Food Policy, Trade and WTO, and Agricultural Growth and Development.

Ralitza Dimova:

Ralitza Dimova obtained her  Ph.D. in Economics from the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, in January 2005. Since her graduation, she has worked as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany) and the National Foundation for Gerontology in Paris and as a lecturer at Brunel University in London. Since September 2010, she has been a Senior Lecturer in Development Economics at the University of Manchester.  Her current research interests include nutrition, education, employment and poverty dynamics in Malawi, Tanzania and Francophone West Africa. Her current field work involves developing an academic network with researchers from Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire.

Patrick Monnet Gbakou:

Patrick Monnet Gbakou obtained his Ph.D. in Economics at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France in 2006. Since his graduation, he has worked as a researcher at University College Dublin, Brunel University in London, University of Hohenheim in Stuttgard, Germany and the University of Manchester in the UK. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Cocody-Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. His areas of interest include consumer behaviour and intra-household allocation of resources, labor supply and migration in less developed countries, in particular those of Francophone West Africa.

Professor Andrew McKenzie

Professor McKenzie is an internationally recognized expert in rice and other grain futures markets. He has published extensively on topics related to futures market efficiency, price discovery, hedging, and futures contract development. McKenzie’s research and teaching programs at the University of Arkansas seek to develop knowledge in the area of grain futures marketing. One of his most recent projects includes the offering of an online course in grain basis trading. The course represents a unique collaboration between White Commercial – a leading US grain advisory firm – and the University of Arkansas to teach risk management skills used in US grain industry. The course was first taught in spring 2012 and attracted over 100 students including professional grain traders from US, Canada and Singapore. For more information visit:

http://globalcampus.uark.edu/Distance_Education/Grain_Basis_Trading/index.html