Eric Tollens has been an agricultural engineer and economist since 1967, and Professor of Agricultural Economics at the Catholic University of Louvain since 1983. He gained a PhD in agricultural economics from Michigan State University, USA, in 1975. From 1971 to 1977 he was demonstrator and assistant lecturer at the Lovanium University, Kinshasa (later the National University of Zaire), and from 1973 to 1977 he headed the Rural Economy Department at Yangambi. He returned to the Catholic University of Louvain from 1977 to 1979, when he became an executive officer with the Commission of the European Communities in Luxembourg until 1983. He has a particular interest in agriculture, rural development and urban food supplies in Central and West Africa. In 1990 and 1991 he contributed to the Zairian agricultural and rural development master plan and plans of action. He published The Agricultural Development of Zaire (Avebury) with D. Shapiro in 1992, and Nourrir Kinshasa: l’approvisionnement local d’une métropole africaine (L’Harmattan) with F. Goossens and B. Minten in 1994.
