Contact: philippe.vaast@cirad.fr

Dr Philippe Vaast is a senior researcher at CIRAD with more than 35 years of experience in tropical agroforestry. He holds an engineering degree in Tropical Agriculture from ISTOM (France) and a PhD in Soil Sciences from the University of California, Davis (USA).

Throughout his career, Philippe has focused on coffee- and cocoa-based agroforestry systems, with particular attention to ecosystem services, climate resilience, and sustainable livelihoods. His work spans Africa, Central America, India, China, and Southeast Asia. He has held long-term research postings at CATIE in Costa Rica, at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Kenya, and in Vietnam, where he contributed to the development and dissemination of integrated agroforestry approaches.

Philippe has coordinated numerous international research projects combining agronomic, ecological, and socio-economic perspectives to support sustainable production systems that benefit rural communities while enhancing environmental services in coffee and cocoa landscapes. He has supervised approximately 20 PhD and 50 MSc students and has contributed to the evaluation of coffee value chains and the formulation of policy recommendations at national and international levels.

More recently, his work has focused on documenting and valorising local ecological knowledge, including the development of decision-support tools to help farmers select shade tree species tailored to local ecological conditions and farmers’ needs, thereby strengthening the resilience of smallholder agroforestry systems to climate change across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

As a Trustee of the International Union for Agroforestry (IUAF), Philippe is committed to promoting agroforestry globally among farmers’ organisations, policymakers, and the private sector. He brings extensive scientific expertise, field experience, and an international network to advance IUAF’s mission of fostering agroforestry as a key pathway for climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable agricultural development.