Introductory remarks by Géraldine Kutas, director general, ECPA, and opening interview with two members of the European Parliament Irène Tolleret (Renew Europe, France) and Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy), moderated by POLITICO’s Managing Editor Policy Marion Solletty.
REPLAY 2019
video highlights
Panel discussion on CAP with Mihail Dumitru, deputy director-general, DG Agriculture and Rural Development, European Commission; Christiane Lambert, president, Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles; Jiří Šír, deputy minister for the EU and foreign relations, Ministry of Agriculture, The Czech Republic; Ariel Brunner, senior head of policy, BirdLife; moderated by Arthur Neslen, POLITICO’s senior agriculture and food reporter.
photo highlights
2019 SPEAKERS
John Clarke
Director for international relations, DG AGRI, European Commission
Joint Interview - Redrawing the agri-food trade map John Clarke is the Director for International Relations at the DG Agriculture and Agricultural Development in the European Commission. He was previously Head of the EU…
Alexandra Nikolakopoulou
head, Farm to fork strategy Unit, DG SANTE, European Commission, food waste, DG SANTE, European Commission
Spotlight discussion: Diets of 2020: Convenience and sustainability - can consumers have it all? Alexandra Nikolakopoulou is head of Farm to Fork strategy Unit at the European Commission’s directorate general for health and food…
Ondina Afonso
Head of Quality Department, Sonae MC
Ondina Afonso has 20+ years work experience in academia and in the agri-food sector. Currently she is director of quality and research at SONAE MC, the largest Portuguese food retailer. She also chairs the…
Lucie Basch
Founder, Too Good To Go, France
An engineer by training, Lucie Basch started her career in the food-processing industry in the UK. Witnessing the scope of food waste in her branch, she quit her job and started thinking of a…
Faustine Bas-Defossez
Head of Agriculture and Land Management Program, Institute for European Environmental Policy
Faustine Bas-Defossez is Head of the Agriculture and Land Management Program at the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a position she has held since April 2018. Previously, Bas-Defossez spent eight years leading the largest…
Thilo Bode
Executive director, Foodwatch International
Thilo Bode founded Foodwatch in 2002, an independent European consumer rights organization advocating for consumers’ right to know what is in their shopping carts and on their plates. He has contributed to the expansion…
Ariel Brunner
Senior Head of Policy, BirdLife Europe and Central Asia
Ariel Brunner is the Senior Head of Policy for BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, a global environmental NGO. He coordinates work on a wide range of EU policies ranging from nature and biodiversity conservation,…
Frans Claassen
Chair, European Palm Oil Alliance
Frans Claassen is chair of the European Palm Oil Alliance (EPOA) since 2012. He is also managing director of the Oils and Fats Industry Association (MVO) in the Netherlands since 2014. He was general…
Phil Houlding
Director for International Policy, Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand
As Director of International Policy at New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries, Phil Houlding leads teams focused on trade policy (including international standards-setting bodies), environmental negotiations, international fisheries issues, and New Zealand’s international agriculture…
Piet van der Meer
Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent Universiteit, Belgium
Since 2006, Piet van der Meer teaches biotechnology regulation as a guest professor at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and as of 2014 at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. He has provided scientific…
Mihail Dumitru
Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, European Commission
Mihail Dumitru is currently Deputy Director General at the European Commission's DG Agriculture and Rural Development, a position he was appointed to in January 2017. After graduating from the Academy of Economic Studies in…
Anna Faucher
President, Let’s Food Cities
Anna Faucher is President of Let’s Food Cities, an NGO she co-founded in 2018 with Louison Lançon, an agronomist and food strategy specialist in countries from the Southern Hemisphere. The organization promotes cooperation on…
Laura Fernández Celemín
Director General, European Food Information Council
Dr Laura Fernández Celemín joined EUFIC in 2002 as a scientific advisor and has since contributed to the growth of the organization fulfilling different roles throughout the years, before taking the leadership in 2015.…
Fabrice DeClerck
Science Director, EAT
Fabrice DeClerck is the science director of EAT and a senior scientist at Bioversity International. He leads innovative and synthetic food systems research using systems-based approaches to set clear science targets for healthy and…
Herbert Dorfmann
Member of the European Parliament (EPP, Italy)
Herbert Dorfmann is a member of the European Parliament since 2009 and was re-elected for a third mandate in May 2019. He started his professional career as a professor at the Agricultural College in…
Guillaume Fourdinier
co-Founder and CEO, Agricool
Guillaume Fourdinier is CEO of Agricool, a start-up he co-founded with Gonzague Gru in 2015 with the objective of making tasty, local and pesticide-free fruits and vegetables available to all. He studied at the…
Julia Harnal
Vice President for Global Sustainability, BASF
Lee Ann Jackson
Lead Researcher on Food and Agriculture Policy, World Trade Organization
Lee Ann Jackson is a Counsellor in the Agriculture and Commodities Division at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Secretary to the Committee on Agriculture. Based in Geneva, she advises WTO Member countries on…
Petra Jorasch
Manager Plant Breeding Innovation Advocacy, Euroseeds
Petra Jorasch holds a Ph.D. in plant molecular biology from the University of Hamburg in 1999. In 2000 she became IP Expert at GFPi Service Ltd., a company which supports the German breeding industry…
Géraldine Kutas
Director-General, ECPA
Géraldine Kutas became director general of the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) in September 2019. Prior to that position, she was head of international affairs at the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA), a position…
Christiane Lambert
President, Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles
Christiane Lambert is the first female president of the Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles (FNSEA), the National Federation of Farmers’ Union in France, and has almost 40 years of experience as a farm…
André Laperrière
Executive Director, Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN)
In September 2015, André Laperrière became Executive Director of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) network whose mission is to encourage the sharing of open data on agriculture and food, and…
Bogomil Nikolov
Executive Director, Bulgarian National Association Active Consumers
Bogomil Nikolov is Executive Director of the Bulgarian National Association Active Consumers since 1999. The organization is a member of BEUC and Consumers International, and often been involved in food quality issues, from implementing…
Liisa Pietola
Head of Environmental Affairs, Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners, Finland
Liisa Pietola is currently Head of Environmental Affairs at the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), and chair of the Working Party on the Environment at Copa-Cogeca, and member of the…
Ian Pigott
Farmer, Thrales End Farms
Ian Pigott runs a diversified farming business in Hertfordshire, U.K., which integrates conservation agriculture, education, farming festivals and environmental stewardship. The business has been no-till since 2015 and is a LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) demonstration…
Nicole Polsterer
Sustainable Consumption Campaigner, FERN
Nicole Polsterer is a sustainable consumption campaigner at the forest and rights non-governmental organization Fern, where she works on mitigating the impacts of EU’s imports of agriculture commodities on Latin America’s tropical forests. She…
Agnés Ricroch
Professor, AgroParisTech
Agnès Ricroch is Senior Lecturer at AgroParisTech, France, and Adjunct Professor at the Pennsylvania State University, U.S., where she teaches biotechnology and bioethics. She is a researcher at the Paris-Sud University, France, where her…
Mute Schimpf
Food and Agriculture Campaigner, Friends of the Earth Europe
Mute Schimpf is Food Campaigner for Friends of the Earth (Europe) since 2010 where she works on issues related to GMO, food and agriculture. She previously worked for several NGOs in Germany, including AbL…
Jiří Šír
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Agriculture, Czech Republic
Jiří Šír became deputy minister for the EU and foreign relations at the ministry of agriculture in the Czech Republic in May 2019. He was director of the department for trade and international cooperation…
Conor Spacey
Chef, The Chefs’ Manifesto
Irène Tolleret
Member of the European Parliament (RE, France)
Irène Tolleret is a member of the European Parliament elected on the Renaissance list, which belongs to the Renew Europe Group. She is a member of the Committee on Agriculture as well as the…
Nicolas Verschuere
Co-founder and COO, Soilcapital
Nick von Westenholz
Director of EU Exit and International Trade, National Farmers Union
Nick von Westenholz became Director of EU Exit and International Trade for the National Farmers Union (NFU) in January 2017. He previously served as Chief Executive of the Crop Protection Association (CPA) from January…