IFA Podcasts

Ben Valk is the Global Head of Food and Agri Partnerships for Rabobank - the globally leading Food and Agri bank. Valk has worked extensively in domestic and international banking. The throughline of Valk’s career is agriculture and food system transformation. For example, he brought about the first 60% of investment in the AGRI3 fund for forest conservation and sustainable agriculture. And Valk has contributed to the Food Action Alliance, the UN Food Systems Summit 2021, Covid-19 response and Food Systems for the Future.

 

David is the World Health Organization’s special envoy on COVID-19. He is also the former Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change. He has more than 30 years’ experience of public health, nutrition and development at country, regional and global levels. David is also the Strategic Director of the social enterprise, 4SD. Based in Switzerland, it provides training and mentoring leaders for sustainable development.

 

Gabriel Eze is co-founder and CFO of Rural Farmers Hub, a private e-extension service provider helping farmer organizations and extension agents support smallholder farmers with better farming decisions via satellite remote sensing or in-person. He helps build new ventures and projects around AI in the education, SME, health, agriculture and security sectors, especially for disadvantaged communities. An advocate for ethical use cases of AI in Africa with more than 10 years of experience in design, software development, and IT consulting, Gabriel is also the Founder/CEO of Touchabl Pictures, co-founder of MyPaymart (an online trust management platform/escrow and trade advisory) and a guest speaker at Hult International Business School.

Jamie Collinson is Chief Technology Officer at Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture (ISDA), a mission-based company developing financially sustainable and commercially scalable solutions for smallholders in Africa. He is a programmer, entrepreneur and lapsed mathematician who is passionate about building technology teams and using software to make things people want. Before joining iSDA, Jamie led a software consultancy focused on helping startups launch their first products, created a software-as-a-service product and took it to market. He also consulted with a wide range of organizations as a “virtual CTO,” managed IT and digital marketing for an international NGO and founded an e-commerce business. Jamie read the Mathematical Tripos at the University of Cambridge.

Ismail Cakmak is Professor of Plant Nutrition at the Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. His current research focused on understanding stress-mitigating effects of mineral nutrients in crop plants and human nutritional aspects of plant minerals, especially micronutrient deficiencies. Professor Cakmak has published 190 peer-reviewed articles, which have been widely cited. Since 2009, he has coordinated the International HarvestZinc project in 12 countries, exploring the role of fertilizer strategy (agronomic biofortification) for enriching food crops with micronutrients such as zinc and iodine. Professor Cakmak is Marschner Review Editor, Plant and Soil (Springer) and a member of the Scientific Panel on Responsible Plant Nutrition, the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Magnesium Institute and the World Iodine Association. Ismael received his doctorate in plant nutritional physiology from the University Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany.

Martin Broadley is Professor and Science Director (Above and Below Ground Processes) at Rothamsted Research, and Professor of Plant Nutrition at the University of Nottingham. Professor Broadley’s research seeks to increase understanding of mineral nutrient dynamics in agriculture and food systems. A particular focus is on improving the nutritional quality of crops for human and livestock diets. This work includes collaborations with soil and crop scientists, human and animal nutritionists and social scientists. It also includes the development of long-term research and training partnerships with higher education and government research institutes in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2017–2021, Professor Broadley was a part-time Senior Research Fellow (Agriculture and Food Systems) in the Research and Evidence Division of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

Kim Nicholson is Vice President of AgTech & Innovation at the The Mosaic Company where she serves on the Global Strategy Team focused on R&D and innovation related to Mosaic products and services. Kim has dedicated over 30 years to the agribusiness industry and has experience in the areas of strategic planning and innovation, brand development, sales leadership, general management and operations.

Mike Pereira is Chief Agronomist for Finistere Ventures, a leading venture capital company in the agricultural technology and food technology space, consults in vegetable seeds and alternative crops through his company, Granum Services, and and is lead instructor for two short courses for seed professionals through the Seed Biotechnology Center of UC Davis, Seed Business 101 – Horticulture and Seed Production. Mike is a highly accomplished agriculturalist with extensive experience over a 39 year career in agronomy, seeds and biofuels.

Patrick Brown is a professor of Plant Sciences in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Brown’s research focuses on function and transport of nutrients in plants and the management of nutrients in agricultural ecosystems. Dr. Brown is a highly cited researcher whose contributions include the identification of nickel as an essential element for plants, critical contributions to the understanding of the function, uptake and transport of boron in plants, identification of mechanisms of plant tolerance to heavy metals in the environment and on the mechanisms of action of foliar fertilizers.

Katja Hora is Research Manager of Specialty Plant Nutrition at IFA member SQM. Dr. Hora joined SQM’s global development team in 2014 to gather and exchange knowledge on potassium nitrate for fertigation, foliar, and field applications. She works on programs including potassium nitrate for maximum crop yield and quality - compared to sulphate or chloride containing K-sources - to grow crops with less water, prevent salinity stress and optimizing nitrate to ammonium ratios. Dr. Hora has a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Amsterdam.

David Powlson is emeritus professor and Lawes Trust Senior Fellow at Rothamsted Research, from which he retired in 2006. His previous work at Rothamsted was to lead research on carbon cycling. His research interests include the dynamics of organic carbon in soil and the interactions between land management and climate change. He is currently contributing to projects on carbon cycling and the use of biomass crops for energy generation.

Dr. Joachim Lammel is Vice President of Sustainability and Strategic Research at Yara Farming Solutions. Mr. Lammel’s previous positions at Yara include Vice President R&D Global Initiatives and Head of Product and Application. Before joining Yara Dr. Lammel worked as a Senior Scientist at the Federal Agricultural Research Centre Braunschweig, Germany. He holds a M.Sc. in Agronomy and a Ph.D. in Crop Nutrition from University of Giessen.

Dr. Mike McLaughlin is a Professor in the School of Agriculture Food and Wine and Director of the Mosaic-sponsored University of Adelaide Fertiliser Technology Research Centre (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/fertiliser/). Mike gained his B.Sc. from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, a M.Agr.Sc from the University of Reading (UK) and his Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide (Australia). With research interests in soil/fertilizer chemistry and crop nutrition, he has published more than 350 research papers dealing with fertilizer chemistry, soil fertility, crop nutrition and fertilizer contaminants and holds several patents covering novel fertilizer formulations.

Dr. Ramesh Raliya is the General Manager (Research and Development) at the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), India, and visiting scientist at the Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Ramesh received his Ph.D. from the Central Arid Zone Research Institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and his M.Sc. from the Department of Botany, Jai Narain Vyas University, India. Ramesh’s research expertise is in product and technology development with the aim of reducing fertilizer runoff while improving sustainable agriculture and he has invented processes for synthesizing novel inorganic and organic nanoforms for plant nutrition.

Munir Rusan is Professor of Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, where he served as a Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture for several years. Munir Rusan worked previously as Consulting Director for the International Potash Institute and the International Plant Nutrition Institute.

Hillel Magen is Vice President of Agronomy at ICL Fertilizers, a company headquartered in Israel, that produces potash, phosphate and specialty fertilizers, including water-soluble fertilizers, an important fertilizer segment for fertigation. Hillel Magen is also Director of the International Potash Institute in Switzerland.

Dr Simon Attwood is an expert in land conservation and management. He has helped to design and deliver the Australian Government’s Environmental Stewardship Program and more recently worked on projects in South East Asia and the Pacific to improve ecosystem services for rural community development and biodiversity conservation. Simon led the Ecological Intensification of Farming Systems team at Bioversity International, where he also co-developed the Agrobiodiversity Index, and was most recently Director of Conservation with WWF Singapore, where he worked on a range of conservation and sustainability challenges in South East Asia.

Dr Achim Dobermann is a soil scientist and agronomist with over 30 years work experience in all world regions. His main interests lie in science and technology solutions for food security and sustainable management of the world’s major agricultural systems. After completing leadership roles at Rothamsted Research and the International Rice Research Institute he now works as IFA’s Chief Scientist and in other strategic science advisory roles.

Manish N. Raizada received his B.Sc. from the University of Western Ontario (Genetics) and Ph.D. from Stanford University (Plant Molecular Genetics). He held fellowship positions at The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico City (Cereal Genomics) and at Caltech (Chemical Engineering). He is currently a Professor and the International Relations Officer in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, Canada. The focus of the Raizada Lab is to develop low cost technologies that reduce the use of nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides to grow corn and other crops including legumes, replacing them with beneficial microbes and the use of biosensors, with a focus on North Ame rica, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Meadows-Smith Marcus holds a degree in Biological Sciences, Genetics from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He is currently CEO of BioConsortia, a discoverer of microbial crop protection and crop enhancement products. Prior to that, he turned around the biopesticide business AgraQuest Inc. over a four-year timeframe, signing partnership agreements between a bio-ag company and several big agchemical giants, culminating in Marcus’ company being acquired by Bayer CropScience for over $400 million. Following Bayer’s acquisition of AgraQuest, he became head of biologics for Bayer CropScience. Previously, Meadows-Smith had a 14-year career at Chemtura Corporation.

Tom Bruulsema Based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Tom Bruulsema is Chief Scientist with Plant Nutrition Canada, working with industry, environmental, and scientific groups to lead agricultural service providers in advancing sustainability. He has served for over 25 years with industry-supported science organizations, leading and contributing to projects on the interactions of crop nutrition with health-functional foods, greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, and eutrophication in Lake Erie. Recent achievements include contributions to nutrient stewardship certification programs in the United States and Canada, and to international initiatives in sustainable management of nitrogen and phosphorus.

Dr. Pytrik Reidsma is Associate Professor at Plant Production Systems, Wageningen University. Her work focuses on sustainability and resilience of farming systems. She has expertise in integrated assessment of agricultural systems, considering impacts on different dimensions of sustainable development (economic, environmental, social), considering different drivers (climate change, policy, markets, technological development), at multiple scales (crop, farm, region, continent; with a focus on the farm level), using a range of methods (statistical analyses, crop modelling, bio-economic farm modelling, Geographic Information Systems, agent-based modelling and participatory approaches).

 

Professor Patrick du Jardin is Senior Scientist, Professor of Plant Biology at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège since 1996, of which he was Dean of faculty in the period 2007-2009. He is an expert in plant physiology and nutrition and his current research is focused on the action of microbial and non-microbial biostimulants on crop plants. He was chairman of the scientific committee of the 4th world congress on the Agricultural uses of Biostimulants. Patrick has a long-standing expertise in the risk assessment of agricultural technologies and was vice-chair of the EFSA GMO panel between 2012 and 2015. He has also been a member of the ethics committee of the French Institutes INRA and Cirad.

Dr. Prem Warrior is the Chief Operating Officer at Valagro, a leading company in the biostimulants space. Previously, he was a Senior Regional Advisor on the Agricultural Development team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle. He concurrently served as a Senior Program Officer and the Team Leader for the Postharvest & Markets group at the Gates foundation. Prem has a PhD in Plant Pathology/Nematology and an MBA in general business. He has published more than 70 scientific peer-reviewed publications, has over 80 international patents and has been associated with the discovery and development of several agricultural products including insecticide, nematicide, plant growth regulators and biostimulants.