Steering Committee

The Steering Committee was established to oversee the consulta­tive process and recommend whether an international assessment was needed, and if so, what was the goal, the scope, the expected outputs and outcomes, governance and management structure, lo­cation of the secretariat and funding strategy.

Co-chairs
Louise Fresco, Assistant Director General for Agriculture, FAO Seyfu Ketema, Executive Secretary, Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) Claudia Martinez Zuleta, Former Deputy Minister of the Environment, Colombia Rita Sharma, Principal Secretary and Rural Infrastructure Commissioner, Government of Uttar Pradesh, India Robert T. Watson, Chief Scientist, The World Bank

Nongovernmental Organizations
Benny Haerlin, Advisor, Greenpeace International Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America Regional Center (PANNA) Monica Kapiriri, Regional Program Officer for NGO Enhancement and Rural Development, Aga Khan Raymond C. Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America Daniel Rodriguez, International Technology Development Group (ITDG), Latin America Regional Office, Peru

UN Bodies
Ivar Baste, Chief, Environment Assessment Branch, UN Environment Programme Wim van Eck, Senior Advisor, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments, World Health Organization Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity

At-large Scientists
Adrienne Clarke, Laureate Professor, School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Australia Denis Lucey, Professor of Food Economics, Dept. of Food Business & Development, University College Cork, Ireland, and Vice-President NATURA Vo-tong Xuan, Rector, Angiang University, Vietnam

Private Sector
Momtaz Faruki Chowdhury, Director, Agribusiness Center for Competitiveness and Enterprise Development, Bangladesh Sam Dryden, Managing Director, Emergent Genetics David Evans, Former Head of Research and Technology, Syngenta International Steve Parry, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Development Program Leader, Unilever Mumeka M. Wright, Director, Bimzi Ltd., Zambia

Consumer Groups
Michael Hansen, Consumers International Greg Jaffe, Director, Biotechnology Project, Center for Science in the Public Interest Samuel Ochieng, Chief Executive, Consumer Information Network

Producer Groups
Mercy Karanja, Chief Executive Officer, Kenya National Farmers' Union Prabha Mahale, World Board, International Federation Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Tsakani Ngomane, Director Agricultural Extension Services, Department of Agriculture, Limpopo Province, Republic of South Africa Armando Paredes, Presidente, Consejo Nacional Agropecuario (CNA)

Scientific Organizations
Jorge Ardila Vásquez, Director Area of Technology and Innovation, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Samuel Bruce-Oliver, NARS Senior Fellow, Global Forum for Agricultural Research Secretariat Adel El-Beltagy, Chair, Center Directors Committee, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Carl Greenidge, Director, Center for Rural and Technical Cooperation, Netherlands Mohamed Hassan, Executive Director, Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Mark Holderness, Head Crop and Pest Management, CAB International Charlotte Johnson-Welch, Public Health and Gender Specialist and Nata Duvvury, Director Social Conflict and Transformation Team, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) Thomas Rosswall, Executive Director, International Council for Science (ICSU)