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…

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…

Alexandra Nikolakopoulou

Head for Food Information and Composition, Food Waste, DG Health and Food Safety, European Commission

Alexandra Nikolakopoulou received her law degree from the University of Athens after which she was called to the Athens Bar. She completed her DEA in European law at the University of Toulouse. After three…

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…

Sébastien Windsor

First Vice-President, Chambre d'Agriculture France