Rate My Professor Nicolette Larder

Dr. Nicolette Larder is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Course Coordinator for Urban and Regional Planning degrees at the University of New England, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education. She holds a PhD from the University of Queensland and a Bachelor of Urban Environmental Planning (Honours - University Medal) from Griffith University. Her research agenda revolves around the social dynamics of the global agri-food system and how people engage with food production amid challenges like land and water scarcity, food insecurity, and social inequality. Drawing from political economy, community economies, social movement studies, gender studies, and financialisation, Larder employs qualitative approaches including extended fieldwork and cross-cultural research conducted in Australia, Mali, Senegal, the UK, and Germany. Current projects examine the financialisation of Australian agriculture by investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity firms, focusing on motivations and changing labour relations. Future research encompasses financial literacy of food producers, comparative food sovereignty movements in Australia and North Africa, and urban food-banks in Australia.

Larder teaches units including GEPL 111 Earth in Crisis, GEPL 112 Where in the World? Australia’s Human Geography, GEPL 301 Economic Change and Urban Development, GEPL 338 Understanding Research, and AGFD 200 Barley to Beer: Food Security. She received the 2012 University of Queensland School of Social Science Madeline Taylor Scholarship ($1,000), 2012 UQ Graduate School International Travel Award ($4,602), and 2011 UQ Global Change Institute grant ($10,000) for 'Understanding Australia’s contribution to food security in the global South'. Key publications include 'Finance Capital, Food Security Narratives and Australian Agricultural Land' (2015, with S. Sippel and G. Lawrence), 'Enacting Food Sovereignty: Values and Meanings in the Act of Domestic Food Production in Urban Australia' (2012, Local Environment), 'Food Acquisition Habits in a Group of African Refugees Recently Settled in Australia' (2010, Health & Place), 'The Measurement of Social Impacts in Rural Social Enterprises' (2023, with P. Musinguzi et al.), and 'Knowing the Lay of the Land: Changes to Land Use and Cover in Village Tank Cascade Systems' (2024, with S.S. Ratnayake et al.).