Dr. Arie van den Brand
IATP Board Chair
President, Biologica, The Netherlands

Dr. Arie van den Brand has worked his whole life at the intersection of agriculture and society. The son of a Dutch family farmer, he earned a master's degree in agriculture from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He was very involved in the development of farmers' unions and cooperatives, and was one of the founding fathers of Dutch sustainable agriculture. He was elected to the Dutch parliament as a Green Party representative and served several years. Currently, Arie is a part-time farmer, consultant and President of Biologica (www.biologica.nl), the Dutch national umbrella organization for organic agriculture. He is also active with the Groupe de Bruges (www.groupedebruges.eu), an independent think tank on European agriculture and rural development, and AlimenTerra (www.alimenterra.org), a new network of European organizations committed to developing practical and cooperative actions leading to the creation of a truly sustainable European food system.

Rod Leonard
IATP Treasurer
Executive Director, Community Nutrition Institute, United States

Rod Leonard is the founder and Executive Director of the Community Nutrition Institute, which works with congressional committees on food and farm policy, and with states and communities to organize and manage food programs. He held a number of positions within the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1960s, including Press Secretary to Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Consumer Services. In the latter position, Rod was responsible for the creation of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, an important source of nutritional food for low-income families today. He also served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs in the Carter White House. Rod lives in Wahkon, Minnesota, and is Treasurer of IATP's Board of Directors.

Harriet Barlow
Executive Director, Blue Mountain Center, United States

Harriet Barlow is the founding Director of the Blue Mountain Center, a working place for progressive artists and activists, and the Director of the HKH Foundation. Harriet was a co-founder of the Bethesda, Md. Food Co-op in 1972, was a part-owner of a West Virginia farm, has been on over 50 boards of directors and has founded or co-founded 15 national and local nonprofit organizations.

Becky Glass
Director of External Relations/Development Specialist, Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), United States

Becky Glass is Director of External Relations for the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), a national policy center and field laboratory for high-road economic development based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (www.cows.org). Prior to joining COWS, Becky served for 12 years as the founding Executive Director of the Midwest States Center, a region-wide nonprofit working with statewide civic engagement coalitions in the Midwest, and before that as regional field director for The Youth Project, where she worked extensively with progressive regional and national agriculture and environmental grassroots organizations involved in the progressive farm movement of the mid-1980s She has a master's degree in urban and regional planning with an emphasis in transportation and energy from the University of Illinois, serves on the board of several nonprofits, and lives with her husband Jim and daughter Amber on a small farm in western Wisconsin where they raise grass-fed beef. She is a founding member of the board of IATP, and serves on the boards of a number of allied nonprofits. She raises grass-fed beef with her husband Jim and daughter Amber on their small farm in western Wisconsin.

Dr. Cândido Grzybowski
Executive Director, Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas (IBASE), Brazil

Candido Gryzbowski is a philosopher and sociologist. He is General Director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (Ibase) in Rio de Janeiro and one of the founders of the World Social Forum, where he represents Ibase on the International Council. Ibase's mission is to build democracy by fighting inequalities and stimulating citizens' participation, and the organization has been in the center of many public campaigns in Brazil, including Land Reform Campaigns (1984-1992), Ethics on Politics (1992-93), Citizens Action against Hunger, Misery and for Life-Hunger Campaign (1993-96), Corporate Social Responsibility (1997) and Where do you keep your racism? (2004). Gryzbowski earned a doctorate degree at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and did post-doctoral studies at the University College London. Gryzbowski has also published books and numerous articles on social movements, civil society, democracy and globalization.

Jim Harkness
President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, United States*
(612) 870-3403  jharkness@iatp.org

Jim Harkness joined IATP in July 2006. Previously he served as Executive Director of the World Wildlife Fund in China from 1999-2005, where he expanded the organization's profile from a strict focus on conservation of biodiversity to also addressing the consequences of China's economic growth on a broader sustainable development agenda. From 1995-1999, Jim worked as the Ford Foundation's Environment and Development Program Officer for China. He has written and spoken frequently on China and sustainable development, and has served as an adviser for the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Jim grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has a B.A. in Asian studies from the University of Wisconsin and a master's in development sociology from Cornell University.

Mika Iba
National Coordinator, National Coalition for Safe and Secure Food and the Environment, Japan

Mika Iba is the National Coordinator of the Network for Safe and Secure Food and the Environment (NESSFE) based in Japan. A simultaneous interpreter by profession, she has worked primarily with citizens' organizations in the area of food, agriculture and trade since the late 1980s. Among the campaigns for safe food in Japan and Asia she has helped coordinate are: No to GM Food Campaign, Food Action 21, Codex NGO Forum, Peoples' Caravan for Food Sovereignty, and Asian Rural Women's Forum. In recent years, she has also been involved in peace and justice, gender and local food initiatives, primarily in Japan. Mika has written and edited several books and articles on food safety, agriculture, environment and trade.

Dr. Joseph Rocher
Executive Director, Réseau d'ONG Européennes sur l'Agro-alimentaire, le Commerce, l'Environnement et le Développement, France

Joseph Rocher hails from Lyon, France where he currently serves as the director of RONGEAD (the European Network on International Trade, Agriculture and Development), an organization at the core of an international network of NGOs, experts, international institutions and businesses that works to boost solidarity within a global economy, acting for and with developing country populations and countries in transition in order to foster sustainable development. An expert on trade policy, agricultural policy and the WTO, Rocher has worked on trade and development projects around the world for more than 30 years, including extensive work in developing nations.

Steven Shrybman
Law Partner, Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, Canada

Steven Shrybman is a reconstructed hog farmer from the prairie hinterland who now practices public interest and international trade law in Ottawa and Toronto. He has been in the forefront of legal challenges to NAFTA and other international trade agreements, and serves on the board of Council of Canadians, Canada's largest citizens' organization.

Victor Suarez Carrera
Executive Director, National Association of Rural Commercialization Enterprises (ANEC), Mexico

Victor Suarez Carrera is the founder and Executive Director and of the National Association of Rural Commercialization Enterprises (ANEC) in Mexico. Since 1995, ANEC has promoted a strategy to allow direct access to agricultural markets for small and medium-sized producers of basic grains, with over 50,000 members in 17 Mexican states. Victor also currently promotes the Mexican national campaign "Sin Maíz No Hay País...Y el frijol Tampoco," or "Without Corn There is No Country... and Not without Beans Either," a movement to protect food security for Mexico. Victor served in the Mexican House of Representatives from 2003-2006 as an external candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), where he served on many committees. He has also been part of numerous political, social and peasant movements both within Mexico and internationally.

Lucia Watson
Chef, restauranteur and local food advocate, United States

Lucia Watson is the proprietor of Lucia's Restaurant, Wine Bar and Lucia's To Go, some of Minneapolis' favorite neighborhood establishments. Chef Watson is author of two cookbooks: Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland and In-Fisherman Presents... Cooking Freshwater Fish. Lucia has been honored with many awards over the years and her recipes have been featured in a host of regional and national magazines. In recent years she has been nominated three times for a James Beard Foundation Award-Best Chef in the Midwest. She is a former board member of The Chef's Collaborative and served a four-year term on the Organic Advisory Task Force to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. She is also former board chair for the Youth Farm and Market Project. Lucia lives in Minneapolis with her two dogs, and when she is not at Lucia's, she is in Brittany, France, studying French food and eating oysters at her refurbished house in the village of Trequier.

Organizations listed are for identification purposes only.

*ex officio