Giel Ton graduated as an agricultural economist in Wageningen University. He worked from 1989-1996 in Nicaragua with a local farmer association, and from 1998-2004 for the national coordinating platform of economic farmer organisations in Bolivia.
Since 2006, he works in the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI Wageningen UR), as a senior researcher. Ongoing research projects relate with innovation grant systems, inclusive business models, collective marketing arrangements, certification programmes, often related with impact evaluation and mixed-methods designs.
He coordinates a world-wide farmer-led research support programme with national farmer organisations in ten developing countries, Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets (ww.esfim.org), with research support provided by Wageningen UR, CIRAD and NRI, all part of AGRINATURA (www.agrinatura.eu), and a wide diversity of local researchers and consultants.