Marcello De Maria

Marcello De Maria is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development – University of Reading. In 2019, he defended his PhD thesis titled ‘Essays on the Economics of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions’ and joined the TRADE Hub(link is external) project (http://tradehub.earth/(link is external)), where he is focusing on policy and institutional solutions for sustainable trade for a number of agricultural commodities – including soybean(link is external). He worked for a decade as freelance researcher and data analyst with a variety of NGOs, research institutes, national and international organisations – including the Italian National Institute of Agricultural Economics (ex-INEA, now CREA), Transparency International, The Global Donor Platform on Land, GIZ and the Land Portal. His research focuses on different aspects of land justice (and injustice), ranging from trade and environmental economics, to land tenure and transparency in land information (eco)systems, ultimately looking at concrete solutions for the promotion of a more sustainable and just governance of land and other natural resources. Research interests: Sustainable trade; Agricultural commodities; Large-scale land acquisitions; Land tenure; Land governance; Institutions; Property rights; Fair compensation; Land justice; Open land data; Transparency & anticorruption; Sustainable trade for agricultural commodities.