Evelyn Nguleka
Evelyn Nguleka was a veterinarian, farmer, and president of the World Farmers' Organisation from mid-2015 to mid-2016.
Early life and education
Evelyn Nguleka was born in 1970 in Zambia.Raised by her grandmother in Ndola, Nguleka attended Fatima Girls' Secondary School. She earned a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Lusaka.
She studied veterinary science at the University of Zambia, and gained an international diploma in poultry handling from Barneveld college in the Netherlands.
Career
Nguleka was a small farmer who specialized in poultry and goats, and in treating diseases in these animals.She became the first female president of the Zambia National Farmers' Union upon her election in 2013. She supported the rights of small farmers and often brought up inconsistencies in how farmers of different crops and farm sizes were treated as a homogenized group.
Upon her election to the presidency of the World Farmers' Organisation in 2015, after appointment as acting president in October 2014, she stated: "For too long the role of the farmer was taken for granted, almost as if we were vending machines for food, called to respond to that role, who carry out with joy the task of feeding the planet in a compulsory and annihilating way, without margins of profits."
While serving as the president of the WFO, she also worked in Switzerland.