Stephen Carr is a leading authority on African rural life. This was given official confirmation when London University gave him the rare distinction of electing him as an Honorary Life Fellow on the basis of “his unparalleled knowledge of African smallholder agriculture”. There was further support when Queen Elizabeth made him an Officer of one of the British orders of chivalry in recognition of his outstanding contribution to African agriculture.

Following on his graduation in agriculture he went to Africa in 1952 as an Anglican missionary and spent 20 years living and working in villages in the Southern Sudan and Uganda as he helped farmers to become more productive. In recognition of this work the Royal Africa Society of Great Britain awarded him their annual medal for “outstanding dedication to Africa”.

In 1973 he was asked by the government of the Southern Sudan to head up their agricultural department to rebuild a service shattered by years of civil war. This was followed by a posting as agricultural advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office in Tanzania. From there, in 1978, he was recruited as a principal agriculturalist in the World Bank covering Sub-Saharan Africa. He retired from that post in 1989 and since then has lived in a small village in Malawi from where he has provided initiatives which have had a major impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of rural families in that country.