Annual Conference 2009
45th Annual Conference and
2009 Future Leaders Forum
May 31 - June 2, 2009
"Food in a Global Economic Crisis: Impacts and Solutions"
Speakers and Panelists
David Bathrick
Mr. Bathrick is a broad-gauged, economic development professional with 20 years of experience at USAID and another 20 years of experience working for for-profit and not-for-profit companies in 20 Latin America and Asia countries. Over the last 15 years, Mr. Bathrick has increasingly focused on facilitating trade-led growth opportunities for small and medium-sized producers and enterprises. Mr. Bathrick's most recent assignment included serving as the Study Team and Outreach Leader for USAID's report "Optimizing the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Benefits of CAFTA;DR: Accelerating Trade-Led Agricultural Diversification (T-LAD). Prior to that, Mr. Bathrick served as Chief of Party, Senior Advisor and Director on economic growth and agriculture development projects for both for-profit and not-for-profit companies such as Chemonics International and Winrock International.
From 1986-1991 Mr. Bathrick was the Director of the Office of Agriculture, AID Bureau for Science and Technology. Prior to this, he was the Director of Offices of Agriculture in USAID/Peru and USAID/Thailand. In 1996, Mr. Bathrick was awarded the "Distinguished Service in International Agriculture Award," by the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development, where he was elected vice president and president 1994/95 and 1995/96 respectively. In 1991, he was appointed Vice-Chair for the Joint AID/BIFAD Committee for Agriculture Research and Development and was commissioned "Counselor," 1983 and "Minister Counselor," 1989, for the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. Mr. Bathrick has an M.S. in International Agricultural Development, Cornell University, NY and a M.A. in Political Science/Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, AZ.
Mark Cackler joined the World Bank in 1981, after working as an Overseas Representative for John Deere Intercontinental, Ltd., based in Thailand. He has held a number of assignments in the World Bank at its headquarters in Washington, covering Africa, East Asia and Latin America, as well as in the New Delhi Office.
In February 2007, Mr. Cackler was appointed Manager of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank, where he oversees the World Bank's global programs for rural poverty alleviation, agriculture and natural resources management. Mr. Cackler was raised in Moline, Illinois. He has economics degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, and the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Daniel Gustafson is the Director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America. He has worked for the past 30 years on agricultural and rural development in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well as in the United States. He has BS and MSc. degrees from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD from the University of Maryland. He began his career in Brazil with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), where he worked from 1977 to 1988.
This was followed by six years at the University of Maryland at the University's International Development Management Center. He joined FAO in 1994, first in Mozambique as an advisor within the Ministry of Agriculture and then as head of FAO's country offices in Kenya from 1998 to 2002 and most recently in India where he worked until returning the US in December 2007.
Mary Hendrickson is Director of the Food Circles Networking Project, an extension program that links farmers and consumers together in local food systems, at the University of Missouri. Her research and extension program focuses on understanding the changes taking place in the global food system and helps farmers, eaters, and communities create profitable alternatives. She has worked extensively with community groups working to increase the amount of fresh, flavorful and nutritious food available by providing technical assistance on marketing, business planning, feasibility studies, food safety and consumer preferences to farmers and community groups. She has helped agricultural cooperatives such as the Ozark Mountain Pork Cooperative, one of the nation's premier suppliers of natural pork, organize and connect with consumers, and worked with individual farmers to refine marketing plans and make connections with grocers, distributors, and chefs. She is currently working with stakeholders in the Kansas City area to establish a Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition, and has provided trainings to school food service directors, extension educators, farmers and policy-makers on emerging farm to school opportunities.
She is a popular speaker who helps explain the production side of the agriculture and food system to health advocates, faith groups and community organizations; and the consumer side of food and agriculture to farmers and farmer organizations. Hendrickson serves as the Associate Director for the University of Missouri Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program. She participated in the International Assessment of Agriculture Science and Technology for Development as a coordinating lead author on the North America Europe sub-global report. She has served as President of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (2006-2007) and as President of the Community Food Security Coalition (2001-2003), a national organization of community-based sustainable agriculture, hunger, and environmental groups. From 2003-2005, she was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a program funded by the Kellogg Foundation.
Hendrickson is the recipient of the 2002 Cooperative Service Award presented by the National Farmers Union. Hendrickson holds a bachelors of science in agribusiness from the University of Nebraska, and a masters and Ph.D. in rural sociology from the University of Missouri. Occasionally, Hendrickson helps her brother on the family farm near Shickley, NE.
Ishii-Eiteman is Senior Scientist and Coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture Program at Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). She is a lead author of the UN-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Before joining PANNSA in 1996, Ishii-Eiteman worked in Asia and Africa in rural development projects for over 12 years. Ishii-Eiteman holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University.
Hiram Larew is currently serving as a short term Agricultural Advisor to the U.S. Department of State. He is Director of the International Programs office in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service where he guides the Agency's international research, extension and education programs in close collaboration with colleagues from U.S. Land Grant colleges and universities. Before moving to USDA, he served as a policy liaison to the U.S. higher education community for the US Agency for International Development. During his tenure at USAID, he also developed some of the Agency's early integrated pest management activities, contributed to a strategy for USAID's research portfolio, and helped to raise awareness of disability issues overseas. He started his career as a research entomologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, MD where he studied neem seed extract as an insecticide and fungicide. His degrees are in horticulture (B.S. from the University of Georgia), and botany and entomology (M.S. and Ph.D. Oregon State University, respectively).
Lloyd Le Page is responsible for coordinating global sustainable development activities for Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business. Pioneer Sustainable Agriculture and Development (PSAD) program, which Lloyd leads, is focused on creating novel partnerships and innovative business approaches to reach previously under-served markets and to provide a foundation for sustainable business and community growth. Lloyd interacts at all levels with Private, Public, Non-profit and Academic sectors both in the US and in developing countries. These interactions are mainly focused on small farmer and sustainable development issues for Asia, Africa, Central America and Eastern Europe.
Prior to his current responsibilities, Lloyd worked for Pioneer as regional supply chain manager for Africa, and previously as production manager for South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In these roles Lloyd managed large capital expansion projects as well as addressing supply chain and product deployment challenges of reaching small and large farmers in Africa. He was also involved with trade and regulatory issues of seed movement and was responsible for implementing quality management systems such as ISO9001:2000 in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Egypt. Lloyd participated in various committees of Africa-Bio, SANSOR and the Seed Trade.Lloyd serves as Vice President of the Iowa Council for International Understanding (ICIU) and board member for the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD). He participates on the advisory panels of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa (PCHPA), the West Africa Seed Alliance (WASA), and the Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Lloyd was one of the participants in the establishment of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol led by the Johnson School of Business at Cornell.
Although Lloyd is British, he spent his childhood in Africa. Prior to Pioneer, Lloyd's career involved farm and livestock management, agro-processing and finally sales agronomy in Zimbabwe. Lloyd moved to Iowa with his family in 2004 and lives in Johnston, Iowa.
Josette Lewis was recently appointed Director of the Office of Agriculture, Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, USAID, which provides technical leadership to the agency in areas such as technology development and delivery, agribusiness development, and agricultural policy. She has spent fourteen years in the central technical bureaus of USAID (currently EGAT) working on programs in the agriculture sector.
Prior to becoming Director of the Office of Agriculture, Dr. Lewis served as the Agency's Senior Biotechnology Advisor for eleven years, overseeing USAID's biotechnology activities globally, with an emphasis on Africa. Dr. Lewis joined USAID as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Technology and Diplomacy Fellow working on farmer-participatory sustainable agriculture research. Dr. Lewis has also managed an Israeli-Arab collaborative research grants program.
Mike McWhorter, as International Training Coordinator, administers Short-Term Non-Academic Training Programs in coordination with academic departments and agencies of The Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, Texas A&M University System. He coordinates student study abroad activities as well as campus visits for international dignitaries. Dr. McWhorter maintains liaison with international governments, agencies, private sector and commodity groups to develop and coordinate training opportunities with TAMUS.
He facilitates training programs coordinated through USAID, USDA/FAS, United Nations/FAO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and other agencies and foundations. For ten years before assuming his current position in 1996, Dr. McWhorter was an investment consultant. From 1973 to 1986, he was an Extension Entomologist with Texas Cooperative Extension, rising from Area Extension Entomologist to Extension Entomologist-Pest Management Program Leader. In 1977-78, He served as Agricultural Advisor to the Office of Pesticide Programs of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. McWhorter earned a B.S. (1969) in Agriculture/Entomology at Texas Tech University and M.S. and Ph.D. (1971/73) degrees in Entomology from Iowa State University.
John Mellor is currently President of John Mellor Associates, Inc, a policy consulting firm. Prior to that he was Vice-President of Abt Associates, Director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Chief Economist of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) At Cornell University he was Professor of Economics, Agricultural Economics and Asian Studies, Director of the Comparative Economics Program and the Center for International Studies.
He was a visiting Professor at the American University, Beirut, and Balwant Rajput College, India. He was the recipient of the Wihuri Prize (Finland) and the Presidential Award (The White House, USA) for efforts to alleviate hunger in the World and is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Agricultural Economics Association. He is the recipient of numerous awards for the quality of his research, the author and co-author of nine books, and hundreds of journal articles and conference papers. He has worked intensively in Afghanistan, both on foreign aid projects and in with his family businesses.
Ruth Mendum – bio unavailable
Howard Minigh has served as President and CEO of CropLife International since June 1, 2006. He is the founder of HM Advisors, LLC, a management advisory firm. He is also a partner in Trishul Capital Partners, a boutique private equity firm and is a Director of MetaMorphix, Inc., an animal genomics company. From 2000-2003 Howard served as Group Vice President of Agriculture and Nutrition with DuPont. From 1995-2000, with American Home Products, Howard was President of Cyanamid Global Agricultural Products.
Franklin C. Moore was appointed as Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID's Africa Bureau in January, 2008. Previously, Mr. Moore served as Director of the Office of Environment and Science Policy within the Agency's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT). He also has served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator and Director for the Agency's Global Center for the Environment.
Prior to joining USAID in 1998, Mr. Moore held positions in the areas of agriculture, environment and national resource management with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with Africare resident in Zimbabwe; with Peace Corps and as a Lecturer at Virginia State (College) University and the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana.
Rob Nooter – Bio unavailable
Thomas Pesek serves as a Liaison Officer at the North America Liaison Office of the IFAD in Washington. He works to influence the direction of national and international poverty reduction policies and processes, cultivate and maintain strategic partnerships and alliances between IFAD and the U.S. government and civil society organizations, and mobilize resources in North America on behalf of IFAD's mission. Prior to joining IFAD, he worked in New York as Project Officer at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Office of the Under-Secretary-General and also as a Liaison Officer for the United Nations World Food Programme.
Susan G. Schram joined ACDI/VOCA as Vice President for Agriculture and Cooperative programs on November 1, 2001. Prior to her current position, Sue served as Executive Director of the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa, a U.S./Africa; public/private partnership chaired by Michigan State University President Peter McPherson, Mali President Alpha Oumar Konare, Senator Bob Dole and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Sue has had extensive experience across the spectrum of agricultural research, education and technology transfer. She began her career working with Michigan State University in County and State Extension Administration. Following an IPA with the National Agricultural Library she moved to Washington on a permanent basis in 1980 to work for the Assistant Secretary of Science and Education at USDA.
Sue later served as Assistant Director of Federal Relations for International Affairs at the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. From 1992-1999 Sue directed the Food and Agriculture Program for Columbia University's Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and served as Deputy Director of CIESIN's Washington Operations. CIESIN makes global environmental change information more available to scientists and policy makers using cutting edge information technology. While earning her Ph.D. in international agriculture and rural development Sue was Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Maryland. She served as President of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD) from 1997 to 1998 and presently manages an international email news network and the AIARD Capitol Hill Forum for its membership and is co-chair of its Education and Advocacy Committee.
Dr. Silverthorne received her B.Sc. degree in Biology from the University of Sussex, Brighton, England and the Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick. Her research training is in the area of plant biology and her research has focused on the role of the phytochrome system in regulating plant growth and development. Dr. Silverthorne came to the National Science Foundation in 1999 as a Program Director from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she served as Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.
She subsequently accepted a permanent Program Director position in 2003 and served as a Cluster leader responsible for the management of the Plant Genome Program in the Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI). Between November 2006 and March 2008, Dr. Silverthorne was on detail at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Life Sciences. In November 2007, Dr. Silverthorne was appointed Acting Deputy Director for DBI, and became Deputy Director in December 2008. She currently serves as the Executive Secretary for the Interagency Working Group on Plant Genomes and the US-EC Task Force on Biotechnology.
Dr. Robert Young is the Chief Economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, Washington, DC. Earlier he was co-Director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Columbia, MO (1991-2003), and Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri. Before that he was the Chief Economist for the Committee on Agriculture in the U.S. Senate (1987-91) and was active in the development of the 1990 Farm Bill.
Mr. Bathrick is a broad-gauged, economic development professional with 20 years of experience at USAID and another 20 years of experience working for for-profit and not-for-profit companies in 20 Latin America and Asia countries. Over the last 15 years, Mr. Bathrick has increasingly focused on facilitating trade-led growth opportunities for small and medium-sized producers and enterprises. Mr. Bathrick's most recent assignment included serving as the Study Team and Outreach Leader for USAID's report "Optimizing the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Benefits of CAFTA;DR: Accelerating Trade-Led Agricultural Diversification (T-LAD). Prior to that, Mr. Bathrick served as Chief of Party, Senior Advisor and Director on economic growth and agriculture development projects for both for-profit and not-for-profit companies such as Chemonics International and Winrock International.
From 1986-1991 Mr. Bathrick was the Director of the Office of Agriculture, AID Bureau for Science and Technology. Prior to this, he was the Director of Offices of Agriculture in USAID/Peru and USAID/Thailand. In 1996, Mr. Bathrick was awarded the "Distinguished Service in International Agriculture Award," by the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development, where he was elected vice president and president 1994/95 and 1995/96 respectively. In 1991, he was appointed Vice-Chair for the Joint AID/BIFAD Committee for Agriculture Research and Development and was commissioned "Counselor," 1983 and "Minister Counselor," 1989, for the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. Mr. Bathrick has an M.S. in International Agricultural Development, Cornell University, NY and a M.A. in Political Science/Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, AZ.
Mark Cackler joined the World Bank in 1981, after working as an Overseas Representative for John Deere Intercontinental, Ltd., based in Thailand. He has held a number of assignments in the World Bank at its headquarters in Washington, covering Africa, East Asia and Latin America, as well as in the New Delhi Office.
In February 2007, Mr. Cackler was appointed Manager of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank, where he oversees the World Bank's global programs for rural poverty alleviation, agriculture and natural resources management. Mr. Cackler was raised in Moline, Illinois. He has economics degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, and the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Daniel Gustafson is the Director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America. He has worked for the past 30 years on agricultural and rural development in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well as in the United States. He has BS and MSc. degrees from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD from the University of Maryland. He began his career in Brazil with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), where he worked from 1977 to 1988.
This was followed by six years at the University of Maryland at the University's International Development Management Center. He joined FAO in 1994, first in Mozambique as an advisor within the Ministry of Agriculture and then as head of FAO's country offices in Kenya from 1998 to 2002 and most recently in India where he worked until returning the US in December 2007.
Mary Hendrickson is Director of the Food Circles Networking Project, an extension program that links farmers and consumers together in local food systems, at the University of Missouri. Her research and extension program focuses on understanding the changes taking place in the global food system and helps farmers, eaters, and communities create profitable alternatives. She has worked extensively with community groups working to increase the amount of fresh, flavorful and nutritious food available by providing technical assistance on marketing, business planning, feasibility studies, food safety and consumer preferences to farmers and community groups. She has helped agricultural cooperatives such as the Ozark Mountain Pork Cooperative, one of the nation's premier suppliers of natural pork, organize and connect with consumers, and worked with individual farmers to refine marketing plans and make connections with grocers, distributors, and chefs. She is currently working with stakeholders in the Kansas City area to establish a Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition, and has provided trainings to school food service directors, extension educators, farmers and policy-makers on emerging farm to school opportunities.
She is a popular speaker who helps explain the production side of the agriculture and food system to health advocates, faith groups and community organizations; and the consumer side of food and agriculture to farmers and farmer organizations. Hendrickson serves as the Associate Director for the University of Missouri Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program. She participated in the International Assessment of Agriculture Science and Technology for Development as a coordinating lead author on the North America Europe sub-global report. She has served as President of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (2006-2007) and as President of the Community Food Security Coalition (2001-2003), a national organization of community-based sustainable agriculture, hunger, and environmental groups. From 2003-2005, she was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a program funded by the Kellogg Foundation.
Hendrickson is the recipient of the 2002 Cooperative Service Award presented by the National Farmers Union. Hendrickson holds a bachelors of science in agribusiness from the University of Nebraska, and a masters and Ph.D. in rural sociology from the University of Missouri. Occasionally, Hendrickson helps her brother on the family farm near Shickley, NE.
Ishii-Eiteman is Senior Scientist and Coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture Program at Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). She is a lead author of the UN-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Before joining PANNSA in 1996, Ishii-Eiteman worked in Asia and Africa in rural development projects for over 12 years. Ishii-Eiteman holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University.
Hiram Larew is currently serving as a short term Agricultural Advisor to the U.S. Department of State. He is Director of the International Programs office in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service where he guides the Agency's international research, extension and education programs in close collaboration with colleagues from U.S. Land Grant colleges and universities. Before moving to USDA, he served as a policy liaison to the U.S. higher education community for the US Agency for International Development. During his tenure at USAID, he also developed some of the Agency's early integrated pest management activities, contributed to a strategy for USAID's research portfolio, and helped to raise awareness of disability issues overseas. He started his career as a research entomologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, MD where he studied neem seed extract as an insecticide and fungicide. His degrees are in horticulture (B.S. from the University of Georgia), and botany and entomology (M.S. and Ph.D. Oregon State University, respectively).
Lloyd Le Page is responsible for coordinating global sustainable development activities for Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business. Pioneer Sustainable Agriculture and Development (PSAD) program, which Lloyd leads, is focused on creating novel partnerships and innovative business approaches to reach previously under-served markets and to provide a foundation for sustainable business and community growth. Lloyd interacts at all levels with Private, Public, Non-profit and Academic sectors both in the US and in developing countries. These interactions are mainly focused on small farmer and sustainable development issues for Asia, Africa, Central America and Eastern Europe.
Prior to his current responsibilities, Lloyd worked for Pioneer as regional supply chain manager for Africa, and previously as production manager for South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In these roles Lloyd managed large capital expansion projects as well as addressing supply chain and product deployment challenges of reaching small and large farmers in Africa. He was also involved with trade and regulatory issues of seed movement and was responsible for implementing quality management systems such as ISO9001:2000 in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Egypt. Lloyd participated in various committees of Africa-Bio, SANSOR and the Seed Trade.Lloyd serves as Vice President of the Iowa Council for International Understanding (ICIU) and board member for the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD). He participates on the advisory panels of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa (PCHPA), the West Africa Seed Alliance (WASA), and the Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Lloyd was one of the participants in the establishment of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol led by the Johnson School of Business at Cornell.
Although Lloyd is British, he spent his childhood in Africa. Prior to Pioneer, Lloyd's career involved farm and livestock management, agro-processing and finally sales agronomy in Zimbabwe. Lloyd moved to Iowa with his family in 2004 and lives in Johnston, Iowa.
Josette Lewis was recently appointed Director of the Office of Agriculture, Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, USAID, which provides technical leadership to the agency in areas such as technology development and delivery, agribusiness development, and agricultural policy. She has spent fourteen years in the central technical bureaus of USAID (currently EGAT) working on programs in the agriculture sector.
Prior to becoming Director of the Office of Agriculture, Dr. Lewis served as the Agency's Senior Biotechnology Advisor for eleven years, overseeing USAID's biotechnology activities globally, with an emphasis on Africa. Dr. Lewis joined USAID as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Technology and Diplomacy Fellow working on farmer-participatory sustainable agriculture research. Dr. Lewis has also managed an Israeli-Arab collaborative research grants program.
Mike McWhorter, as International Training Coordinator, administers Short-Term Non-Academic Training Programs in coordination with academic departments and agencies of The Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, Texas A&M University System. He coordinates student study abroad activities as well as campus visits for international dignitaries. Dr. McWhorter maintains liaison with international governments, agencies, private sector and commodity groups to develop and coordinate training opportunities with TAMUS.
He facilitates training programs coordinated through USAID, USDA/FAS, United Nations/FAO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and other agencies and foundations. For ten years before assuming his current position in 1996, Dr. McWhorter was an investment consultant. From 1973 to 1986, he was an Extension Entomologist with Texas Cooperative Extension, rising from Area Extension Entomologist to Extension Entomologist-Pest Management Program Leader. In 1977-78, He served as Agricultural Advisor to the Office of Pesticide Programs of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. McWhorter earned a B.S. (1969) in Agriculture/Entomology at Texas Tech University and M.S. and Ph.D. (1971/73) degrees in Entomology from Iowa State University.
John Mellor is currently President of John Mellor Associates, Inc, a policy consulting firm. Prior to that he was Vice-President of Abt Associates, Director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Chief Economist of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) At Cornell University he was Professor of Economics, Agricultural Economics and Asian Studies, Director of the Comparative Economics Program and the Center for International Studies.
He was a visiting Professor at the American University, Beirut, and Balwant Rajput College, India. He was the recipient of the Wihuri Prize (Finland) and the Presidential Award (The White House, USA) for efforts to alleviate hunger in the World and is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Agricultural Economics Association. He is the recipient of numerous awards for the quality of his research, the author and co-author of nine books, and hundreds of journal articles and conference papers. He has worked intensively in Afghanistan, both on foreign aid projects and in with his family businesses.
Ruth Mendum – bio unavailable
Howard Minigh has served as President and CEO of CropLife International since June 1, 2006. He is the founder of HM Advisors, LLC, a management advisory firm. He is also a partner in Trishul Capital Partners, a boutique private equity firm and is a Director of MetaMorphix, Inc., an animal genomics company. From 2000-2003 Howard served as Group Vice President of Agriculture and Nutrition with DuPont. From 1995-2000, with American Home Products, Howard was President of Cyanamid Global Agricultural Products.
Franklin C. Moore was appointed as Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID's Africa Bureau in January, 2008. Previously, Mr. Moore served as Director of the Office of Environment and Science Policy within the Agency's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT). He also has served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator and Director for the Agency's Global Center for the Environment.
Prior to joining USAID in 1998, Mr. Moore held positions in the areas of agriculture, environment and national resource management with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with Africare resident in Zimbabwe; with Peace Corps and as a Lecturer at Virginia State (College) University and the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana.
Rob Nooter – Bio unavailable
Thomas Pesek serves as a Liaison Officer at the North America Liaison Office of the IFAD in Washington. He works to influence the direction of national and international poverty reduction policies and processes, cultivate and maintain strategic partnerships and alliances between IFAD and the U.S. government and civil society organizations, and mobilize resources in North America on behalf of IFAD's mission. Prior to joining IFAD, he worked in New York as Project Officer at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Office of the Under-Secretary-General and also as a Liaison Officer for the United Nations World Food Programme.
Susan G. Schram joined ACDI/VOCA as Vice President for Agriculture and Cooperative programs on November 1, 2001. Prior to her current position, Sue served as Executive Director of the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa, a U.S./Africa; public/private partnership chaired by Michigan State University President Peter McPherson, Mali President Alpha Oumar Konare, Senator Bob Dole and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Sue has had extensive experience across the spectrum of agricultural research, education and technology transfer. She began her career working with Michigan State University in County and State Extension Administration. Following an IPA with the National Agricultural Library she moved to Washington on a permanent basis in 1980 to work for the Assistant Secretary of Science and Education at USDA.
Sue later served as Assistant Director of Federal Relations for International Affairs at the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. From 1992-1999 Sue directed the Food and Agriculture Program for Columbia University's Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and served as Deputy Director of CIESIN's Washington Operations. CIESIN makes global environmental change information more available to scientists and policy makers using cutting edge information technology. While earning her Ph.D. in international agriculture and rural development Sue was Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Maryland. She served as President of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD) from 1997 to 1998 and presently manages an international email news network and the AIARD Capitol Hill Forum for its membership and is co-chair of its Education and Advocacy Committee.
Dr. Silverthorne received her B.Sc. degree in Biology from the University of Sussex, Brighton, England and the Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick. Her research training is in the area of plant biology and her research has focused on the role of the phytochrome system in regulating plant growth and development. Dr. Silverthorne came to the National Science Foundation in 1999 as a Program Director from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she served as Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.
She subsequently accepted a permanent Program Director position in 2003 and served as a Cluster leader responsible for the management of the Plant Genome Program in the Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI). Between November 2006 and March 2008, Dr. Silverthorne was on detail at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Life Sciences. In November 2007, Dr. Silverthorne was appointed Acting Deputy Director for DBI, and became Deputy Director in December 2008. She currently serves as the Executive Secretary for the Interagency Working Group on Plant Genomes and the US-EC Task Force on Biotechnology.
Dr. Robert Young is the Chief Economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, Washington, DC. Earlier he was co-Director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Columbia, MO (1991-2003), and Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri. Before that he was the Chief Economist for the Committee on Agriculture in the U.S. Senate (1987-91) and was active in the development of the 1990 Farm Bill.