I have a technical background in livestock nutrition but in recent years have become interested in institutional barriers to livestock feed development among smallholder farmers. This has involved me in experimentation with the use of local innovation platforms to catalyse innovation to overcome system level blockages to improved livestock feeding. I manage a range of research for development projects mainly focused on livestock feed issues. Within many of these I have been developing and applying the use of simple participatory tools such as FEAST and Techfit to aid identification of appropriate feed development strategies in smallholder systems