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Brussels, Belgium

Monday, December 5, 2022
16:00 - 18:30 (CET)

Throughout the year, the Forum organises special events to discuss agriculture and the environment at a national level across Europe and further afield. We hosted a special transatlantic event in Brussels on Monday, December 5, 2022.

Summaries from this event

Articles/News

Building the transatlantic partnership for a more resilient and sustainable, and climate-smart food and agriculture system

Dec 05, 2022

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Confirmed speakers (in alphabetical order)

Robert Bonnie image
Robert Bonnie

Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, USDA

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Robert Bonnie

Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, USDA

Robert Bonnie is the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation at USDA. Prior to joining USDA, Bonnie was at Duke University first as a Rubenstein Fellow and later as an Executive in Residence at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions working on conservation and environmental issues in rural America. In 2020, Bonnie also worked with the Bipartisan Policy Center on its Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative. Bonnie was Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA from 2013 to 2017, and a senior advisor to Secretary Tom Vilsack from 2009 to 2013. Prior to joining USDA, Robert was vice president for land conservation at Environmental Defense Fund where he focused on developing incentives to reward stewardship on private lands. Robert has master’s degrees from Duke in forestry and environmental management. He lives with his wife, Julie, and daughter, Lilly, in Loudoun County, Virginia.

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John Clarke

Director of International Affairs, DG Agriculture & Rural Development, European Commission

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John Clarke

Director of International Affairs, DG Agriculture & Rural Development, European Commission

John Clarke is director for international affairs in the European Commission’s DG Agriculture. Since May 2013 he has been focused, in particular, on multilateral negotiations with industrialised countries that include the USA and Japan, as well as with Africa in DG Agriculture and Rural Development. In this role, he has also been responsible for relations with Asian and Latin American countries, their free trade agreements, neighbourhood policy and EU enlargements. Prior to this, he was head of the EU delegation to the World Trade Organisation and the UN in Geneva. He joined the European Commission in 1993 as a trade negotiator. For ten years before joining the Commission, Mr Clarke held various official roles in the Hong Kong government, including as the governor’s head of cabinet.
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Maciej Golubiewski

Head of Cabinet of Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Janusz Wojciechowski

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Maciej Golubiewski

Head of Cabinet of Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Janusz Wojciechowski

Maciej Golubiewski is the Head of Cabinet of Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Janusz Wojciechowski. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Washington and Lee University (1999) and a Master of Arts degree in Political Science from the Johns Hopkins University (2005). He also holds an International Baccalaureate Diploma from the United World College of the Atlantic in the UK. After graduation, he moved to Washington D.C. where he spent three years in business consulting at Charles River Associates International (CRAI) before going on to graduate school. During his studies Mr. Golubiewski interned with the office of Senator Richard Lugar, served as a summer fellow at the Heritage Foundation and was an associate scholar at the Center for European Policy Analysis. For close to five years, he was a teaching assistant and lecturer in political science and international relations at the Johns Hopkins University and spent two semesters as a visiting professor at Mannheim University in Germany. In 2008, he joined, as an established official, the Directorate General for Development and Relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries at the European Commission in Brussels as a desk responsible for regional political and economic cooperation with the Horn, East and Southern Africa region. During that time he participated in the Economic Partnership Agreement free trade negotiations with the African regional blocks. In 2011, he was transferred to the newly created European External Action Service, where, since 2012, he had been responsible for preparing the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council positions on the developing conflict in Syria. Between 2014 and 2016, Mr. Golubiewski served as the Deputy Chief of Mission and the Head of the Political Section at the EU Delegation to Lebanon in Beirut and between 2017 and 2019 as the Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York. Mr. Golubiewski sits on an advisory board of the Integral Economic Development master programs at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C, and for almost ten years has been associated with the Sobieski Institute in Warsaw as an expert on the EU and foreign policy. He speaks Polish, English and French.
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Jason Hafemeister

Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, USDA

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Jason Hafemeister

Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, USDA

Jason Hafemeister is the Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs and the Trade Counsel to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In this role, he advises the Secretary and the Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs on agricultural trade policy.
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Chris Harbourt

Chief Strategy Officer, Indigo Agriculture

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Chris Harbourt

Chief Strategy Officer, Indigo Agriculture

As the company’s first CSO, Chris drives business strategy across the company, guiding Indigo’s research, external affairs, and strategic partnerships to advance understanding of agriculture’s potential as a climate solution. He is charged with further developing Indigo’s partnership across the ag ecosystem and incubating new business concepts. Most recently, Chris served as Global Head of Carbon, where he oversaw Indigo’s development of the industry’s first scalable, high quality, and scientifically rigorous carbon credit program for farmers. He first joined the company in 2019 as a Vice President, where he was responsible for guiding Indigo’s Product and Engineering teams in the development of digital agronomic tools.
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Alan Matthews

Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy in the Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences...

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Alan Matthews

Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy in the Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin

Alan Matthews is Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy in the Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His major research interests are agricultural policy analysis, the impact of international trade on developing countries, and computable general equilibrium analysis of trade and agricultural policy reforms. He has previously worked as a consultant to the OECD, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations and the UN Industrial Development Organisation, and has been a panel member in a number of WTO Dispute Settlement procedures.
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Ted McKinney

Chief Executive, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA)

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Ted McKinney

Chief Executive, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA)

Ted McKinney serves as the Chief Executive Officer of NASDA, a position to which he was named in September 2021. Prior to NASDA, he was also the first U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs from 2017-2021. In that role, Under Secretary McKinney led the development and implementation of the Department’s trade policy, oversaw and facilitated foreign market access, and promoted opportunities for U.S. agriculture through various trade programs and high-level government negotiations. He also oversaw the U.S. Codex Alimentarius staff and functions. After his USDA service, McKinney was engaged in foreign affairs and outreach involving the US food and agriculture industry and its engagement with the United Nations Food Systems Summits.
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Jeffrey Nawn

CEO / Founder at North Hill Group

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Jeffrey Nawn

CEO / Founder at North Hill Group

Jeff Nawn is the founder and CEO of North Hill Group, a mission-driven firm that specializes in regulatory, government and consumer affairs for the food and agricultural sectors. Jeff has more than two decades of experience in international trade policy and market access analysis and negotiations, as well as in developing and executing domestic and international regulatory advocacy strategies. Throughout his career, both in the public and private sectors, Jeff has gained first-hand experience in balancing the demands of market access, agricultural innovation, regulatory approvals, sustainability, and consumer acceptance.
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Janez Potočnik

Chair ForumforAg and Chairman RISE Foundation

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Janez Potočnik

Chair ForumforAg and Chairman RISE Foundation

Dr Janez Potočnik graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. After a successful career starting in 1989 in Slovenia as a researcher at the Institute of Economic Research, Director of the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (1994), he was appointed Head of the Negotiating Team for the Accession of Slovenia to the EU (1998). He was also Director of Government Office for European Affairs (2000), Minister Councillor at the Office of the Prime Minister (2001) and Minister responsible for European Affairs (2002). In 2004 he joined the European Commission, first as "shadow Commissioner for Enlargement and then as Commissioner responsible for Science and Research. In 2010 Dr Potočnik became Commissioner for Environment. His term ended in November 2014 and he was appointed as a Co-Chair of UN Environment International Resource Panel and was also appointed as a Chairman of The Forum for the Future of Agriculture and RISE Foundation and a Member of the European Policy Centre's Advisory Council. From April 2016 he is also the Partner in SYSTEMIQ. More information Twitter – @JanezPotocnik22 Facebook – potocnikjanez LinkedIn - janez-potocnik-872470a7
Alain-Dominique Quintart image
Alain-Dominique Quintart

Head of Government & Public Affairs (Europe, Africa and Middle East), Syngenta

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Alain-Dominique Quintart

Head of Government & Public Affairs (Europe, Africa and Middle East), Syngenta

Alain-Dominique Quintart is the Head of Government & Public Affairs EAME and the Head of Syngenta Brussels office.  He joined the Brussels office in September 2007. He previously held senior management positions with Syngenta, Global Head for the worldwide Flowers Seeds activity, Country Head for Syngenta Crop Protection in Belgium and Portugal, Marketing Head in France and in Switzerland for the European Region. He started his career with Syngenta in 1991 in the UK as European Product Manager for Animal Health. Alain-Dominique Quintart has been involved in managing mergers and acquisitions, setting business strategies and ensuring their implementation and delivery. He has a Master of Science in Engineering from UCLouvain and an MBA from Insead.
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Giulia Riedo

Policy Officer, Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems, WWF European Policy Office

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Giulia Riedo

Policy Officer, Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems, WWF European Policy Office

Giulia Riedo is currently working for the WWF EPO as Agriculture and Sustainable Food System Policy Officer. Previously she worked for the UNFAO, among others, on food production resilience and climate change adaptation.
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Shari Rogge-Fidler

President and CEO, Farm Foundation

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Shari Rogge-Fidler

President and CEO, Farm Foundation

Shari is president and CEO of Farm Foundation with over 25 years of global leadership and executive experience. She has a unique perspective, developed through her experience as a fifth-generation farm owner and operator, entrepreneur in the organic branded food industry, founder of an agribusiness consulting firm and leader of a soil health technology firm. Shari also served as CEO for a suite of service companies for 1,000 farms across the US. She began her career in London in financial services and continued in Europe with the Boston Consulting Group. Shari has served on several corporate boards, including Farm Credit Mid America and Coastal Pet. She currently serves as a trustee for The Nature Conservancy, and advisory boards of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, and Lewis & Clark Agrifood Fund.

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Jeremy Rollison

Senior Director, EU Government Affairs, Microsoft

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Jeremy Rollison

Senior Director, EU Government Affairs, Microsoft

Jeremy Rollison is Senior Director of EU Government Affairs within Microsoft’s Corporate, External & Legal Affairs (CELA) group. Based in Brussels, his work focuses on policy related to the EU Digital Single Market (DSM), with a particular emphasis on data issues and corresponding public policy covering privacy, cybersecurity, cloud policy, and the cross-border provision of online services. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked in the Government Relations team at Nokia in the company’s EU representative office, and was previously Director of the European Digital Media Association (EDiMA) in Brussels. He has over a decade of experience in Brussels at the company, association, and consultancy levels, focusing and engaging with EU stakeholders on issues related to the development and delivery of online services in the Internal Market and corresponding EU regulatory policy.
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Kerstin Rosenow

Head of Unit ‘Research & Innovation’, DG AGRI, European Commission

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Kerstin Rosenow

Head of Unit ‘Research & Innovation’, DG AGRI, European Commission

Kerstin is Head of Unit ‘Research & Innovation’ in DG AGRI, European Commission where she is responsible for programming, managing and monitoring agricultural research and the European Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI). Previously she was Head of Unit in the EC Research Executive Agency (REA) managing the implementation of the project portfolio for Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 (food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime, and inland water research and the bioeconomy). Lawyer by education and training, she’s been working in the EC for over 15 years after covering a managerial position in the German administration (Representation of the State of Hessen to the EU). For DG AGRI she coordinated negotiations with pre-accession and candidate countries and the preparation of the 2014-2020 CAP legislative framework.
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Lukas Visek

Member of the Cabinet of Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans

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Lukas Visek

Member of the Cabinet of Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans

Lukas Visek is a member of the Cabinet of Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. In the context of the European Green Deal, his responsibilities cover the Farm to Fork Strategy, agriculture and the EU’s common agricultural policy as well as the zero pollution initiatives. He also advises on policies related to health, food safety and animal welfare. Lukas started working in the European Commission in 2001 after three years in the Czech Ministry of Agriculture. Lukas graduated as an economist from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague.

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Marta Zualaga-Zimmerman

VP Government Relations EMEA, Cargill

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Marta Zualaga-Zimmerman

VP Government Relations EMEA, Cargill

Marta Zuluaga Zilbermann is Vice President of Government Relations for Cargill in the EMEA region, leading the work of the team in designing and implementing government affairs and advocacy strategies for Cargill across the region. Marta represents Cargill in a number of EU industry trade associations and is currently Vice-Chair of the AmCham EU Agro-Food Committee, Chair of FEDIOL Environment Committee as well as Vice-Chair of COCERAL Food and Feed Safety Committee. Marta lives in Brussels and prior to joining Cargill she worked as consultant in European affairs both in the public and private sector. Marta obtained her Law and business degree at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, ICADE, Madrid, and has an LL.M degree in European Law from the Institut d’Etudes Européenes, ULB, Brussels.

Confirmed Moderators (in alphabetical order)

Mark Titterington image
Mark Titterington

Co-Founder & Director, Forum for the Future of Agriculture

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Mark Titterington

Co-Founder & Director, Forum for the Future of Agriculture

Mark has enjoyed a long career in the agri-food sector having previously worked at the United Nations and for Syngenta where he held a number of senior leadership positions in corporate affairs and business sustainability in the EAME region and globally. After leaving Syngenta in 2017, Mark became Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to inspiring and nurturing STEM skills in young people. Mark later became Head of Marketing and Public Affairs for Indigo Agriculture Europe GmbH. Mark is a co-founder and senior adviser to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture and a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Policy Network.

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Natasha Foote

Journalist at Euractiv

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Natasha Foote

Journalist at Euractiv

Natasha is currently working as an agrifood and health journalist for the EU media, EURACTIV, where she focuses on EU policy and how this links with issues on the ground. Previously, she worked on a mixed organic farm in the south of France and prior to that Mazi Farm, an agroforestry project in Greece. She holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Bristol and an MA in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex, where she worked on food issues and alternative approaches to food production. adviser to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture and a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Policy Network.

Agenda

Dec 05, 2022

16:00 - 18:30 (CET)

16:00 - 16:05 (CET)

Welcome

● Mark Titterington, Senior Advisor to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture

16:05 - 16:20 (CET)

Opening remarks

● Janez Potočnik, Chair of ForumforAg 2022 and Chairman the RISE Foundation; Co-Chair of the International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

16:20 - 17:20 (CET)

Investment in innovation for sustainable agriculture and the Green Deal Ambition

Key speakers
● Robert Bonnie (online),Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, USDA
● Lukas Visek, Member of Cabinet, Executive Vice-President, European Green Deal, European Commission

Respondents (in alphabetical order)
● Chris Harbourt, Chief Strategy Officer, Indigo Agriculture
● Giulia Riedo, Junior Policy Officer for agriculture and sustainable food, WWF EPO
● Shari Rogge-Fidler, CEO, Farm Foundation
● Jeremy Rollison, Senior Director, EU Government Affairs, Microsoft
● Kerstin Rosenow, Head of Unit “Research and innovation, DG AGRI, European Commission
● Moderated by Natasha Foote, Euractiv

17:20 - 18:25 (CET)

Defining and delivering on sustainable trade objectives

Key speakers
● Jason Hafemeister, Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, USDA
● Maciej Golubiewski, Head of Cabinet of Commissioner for Agriculture at the European Commission

Respondents (in alphabetical order)
● John Clarke, Director for International affairs, DG AGRI, European Commission
● Alan Matthews, Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy, Trinity College, Dublin
● Ted McKinney, Chief Executive, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA)
● Jeffrey Nawn, CEO/ Founder at North Hill Group
● Marta Zuluaga Zilbermann, VP Government Relations Europe, Middle East & Africa, Cargill
● Moderated by Mark Titterington, Senior advisor to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture

18:25 - 18:30 (CET)

Closing

● Alain-Dominique Quintart Head of Government & Public Affairs EAME, Syngenta
● Mark Titterington, Senior advisor to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture

In collaboration with the Forum's founding and strategic partners

The European Landowners' Organization (ELO) image Syngenta image The Nature Conservancy image Cargill image IUCN image WWF image Thought for Food image

International and tech partners

Chicago Council on Global Affairs image Microsoft image

Supporting partners

The Friends of the Countryside image Rise Foundation image John Deere image Indigo image Nestlé image Pepsico image

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