Board Member
Dyborn Chibonga is an Agriculture Specialist who has recently retired from being the Regional Head for Southern Africa at AGRA, an alliance aimed to catalyze and sustain inclusive agriculture and food systems transformation for smallholder farmers in Africa.
Prior to joining AGRA in October 2017, Mr. Chibonga was the Chief Executive Officer of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM) for 18 years. In this role, he was widely considered to be one of the most successful leaders in the agriculture sector. He effectively advocated for smallholder farmer concerns to treat farming as business for sustainable value chains to various national, regional and international fora. NASFAM started as a USAID project with 7,000 smallholder farmers and grew to become the leading farmer organization in the region, with more than 200,000 registered members. The organization pioneered the establishment of The Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE) in 2004 and entered into Fairtrade production of peanuts in 2005. NASFAM won the YARA Prize for an African Green Revolution in 2009 (now Africa Food Prize) and was awarded Runner Up for Advocacy in the 2013 Africa Farmer Organization of the Year Award by AFRICRES in partnership with AGRA.
Mr. Chibonga is from Malawi and has more than 25 years governance experience from working on various boards of both for-profit and non-profit organizations including World Vision Malawi, Press Agriculture, Opportunity International Bank of Malawi Ltd, Cooperative Insurance Company of Malawi, the Jubilee University Council, Commercial Agriculture Support Services, African Institute for Corporate Citizenship (AICC), Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council (GAC) on Food and Nutrition Security, European Economic and Social Follow-Up Committee (EESC), and the National Advisory Council for Strategic Planning.
Mr. Chibonga holds a Diploma and BSc degree from Bunda College of Agriculture of the University of Malawi and an MSc in Landscape Ecology Design & Maintenance from the University of London, where he also obtained a Master’s Certificate in NGO Management.
