Zinhle is an Agricultural scientist with a Master’s degree in Agriculture (Crop Science), which she obtained from the University of KwaZulu Natal. Zinhle’s interests are agriculture, improvement of rural livelihoods through development of close relationships with rural communities and implementation of Participatory Action Research. She started her career as an intern at one of the Monsanto research farms where she gained technical experience in crop science and plant breeding. She then joined the Agricultural Research Council as a Junior Researcher where she lead projects on Development of 10 x 10 food garden model and enterprise development for smallholder farmers of Eastern Cape. Zinhle joined the INR in June 2015 and works under the Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods Theme and is currently involved in the Water Research Commission funded projects i.e investigating the infield rainwater harvesting methods at KwaZulu-Natal (Msinga) and Eastern Cape (Ntshiqo) and the Water use of agroforestry systems.