The Odessa Centre Ltd. was founded in 2003 in England by two social anthropologists, Carol Kerven and Roy Behnke. We have each done research and development work for about 40 years, in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Carol’s interests are on pastoralists’ market engagement in semi-arid regions, and in pastoral household economic dynamics. Roy’s focus is on extensive livestock production, rangeland ecology, management and tenure.
We seek to apply the results of empirical field research for a clearer understanding of appropriate policy and practical measures. Between doing research, employment and consultancy, we straddle boundaries across different fields and spheres of interest.
Our Current Projects
Carol is the co-director of an NGO in Kyrgyzstan, with a Kyrgyz co-director and 7 full or part-time Kyrgyz employees. Since 2007, she has been working with Kyrgyz mountain farmers raising indigenous fibre-bearing goats, as our projects have found and published that these goats produce cashmere with a commercial value in world markets.
Carol and Roy founded in 2010 the open access peer-reviewed journal “Pastoralism – research, policy and practice”, published online until 2024 by Springer Nature in London. Since 2025 the journal is published online by Frontiers Media in Switzerland. Carol is the editor-in-chief. With 21 associate editors, the Journal publishes each month on a wide array of issues that influence public policy, aiming to improve the welfare of pastoral people and better conserve the environments in which they live.
Roy most recently completed a desk assignment as Team Leader on a World Bank-funded project on Sustainable Livestock Development for Kazakhstan, in 2020-2021. With Kazakhstan scientific colleagues, he developed “Good Grassland and Pasture Management Practices Guidelines” for the creation of the first extension manuals in Kazakhstan targeted at small-scale livestock owners.
Roy’s latest field assignment was in 2019 (pre-pandemic), as Team Leader on a USAID-funded study of the ‘Productivity and Economic Value of Livestock in Karamoja, Uganda.’ In collaboration with Ugandan colleagues, he designed survey questionnaires, supervised the interviewing of 1237 livestock owners, analysed survey results and wrote the final consultancy report.
Carol most recently consulted over two years on a cashmere farmer development project in Nepal for the World Trade Centre, part of the UN World Trade Organisation and UNCTAD. She was also a part-time consultant from 2016 to 2024 for Pur Project, a social and environmental sustainability company in Paris, France, advising on value chain development for cashmere goat farmers in Kyrgyzstan for Chanel, Paris.