Professor Haroon Akram-Lodhi teaches agrarian political economy at Trent University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies, an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for the Woman's Rights program of the Open Society Foundations. He further provides extensive advisory services to various UN agencies, including UN Women and the United Nations Development Program. And recently he repackaged some of his university courses into a podcast entitled: "Peasants, Food and Agrarian Change". 

We speak about:

• the gender dimensions of rural political economy
• failings of dominant development discourses
• social movements and demanding rights
• the different interests and agendas of development stakeholders 
• facing ethical issues in his consultancies & choosing not to work with some organizations
• knowledge mobilization between academia and development agencies
• the human rights based approach /model 
• the farmers protests in India
• the impact of COVID-19 on development policies 

He joins us from Toronto, Canada.