Welcoming a new YPARD Steering Committee member: Danielle Nierenberg!

YPARD is glad to welcome a new Steering Committee member:  Danielle Nierenberg.

Danielle is an expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues and has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world, and innovations in sustainable agriculture. She currently is the co-founder of FoodTank: The Food Think Tank .

From 2009-2012, Danielle was the Director of the Nourishing the Planet project housed at the Worldwatch Institute. During that time she managed a US$1.34 million grant to assess the state of agricultural innovations. She spent two years traveling to more than 35 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America meeting with farmers and farmers’ groups, scientists and researchers, policymakers and government leaders, students and academics, and journalists collecting their thoughts on what’s working to help alleviate hunger and poverty, while also protecting the environment.

Danielle worked with more than 60 authors from all over the world to produce State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. The State of the World symposium she organized in January 2011 brought together representatives of USDA, the World Bank, farmers organizations, agricultural research organizations, and other stakeholders.

Danielle served as a Food and Agriculture Senior Researcher at Worldwatch from 2001-2012 working on major research projects on gender and population, the global meat economy, emerging infectious diseases related to the food system, climate change and agriculture, and innovations in sustainable agriculture.

Her knowledge of global agriculture issues has been cited widely in more than 3,000 major publications and outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, BBC, the Guardian (UK), Agence France Presse, Voice of America, the Times of India, and so many more and major publications.

Danielle has authored or contributed to several major reports and books, including Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry (2005), State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet (Editor and Project Director, 2011), Eating Planet 2012 (2012), and Food and Agriculture: The Future of Sustainability (2012).

She has spoken at major conferences and events all over the world including The World Food Prize/Borlaug Dialogues (2010 and 2012), the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development (2012), UNFCCC COP 16, the Sustainable Food Summit (2012), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2011) and many others.

Danielle is a reviewer for the Africa Chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change WGII AR5 First Order Draft.  She serves on the Advisory Group for the Zero Hunger Partnership, along with Sir Gordon Conway and Heifer International President Pierre Ferrari.  She served as a juror for the 2011 Buckminster Prize Challenge and as an evaluator for the 2012 AGFUND International Prize for Pioneering Human Development Projects.

Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in Environmental Policy from Monmouth College.

Having Danielle in YPARD Steering Committee is invaluable for strengthening the strategic directions of the Platform. It is particularly a chance to expand the network and YPARD’s partnerships in North America. Warm welcome, Danielle!