Dr. Cary Fowler, Executive Secretary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust to Speak
at 2008 Wernsman Seminar
Seed Banks and Polar Bears: The Quest to Save Agriculture’s Past and Our Future
content provided by: Global Crop Diversity Trust
2008 Wernsman Seminar
Seed Banks and Polar Bears: The Quest to Save Agriculture’s Past and Our Future
3:30 pm Thursday, March 13
Dabney Hall, Room 124
Photo Provided by:Global Crop Diversity Trust and Kalle Koponen/HS
SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER
Dr. Cary Fowler
Dr. Cary Fowler is the Executive Secretary (Head) of the Global Crop Diversity Trust
and a former resident of Pittsboro, NC, and winner of an “alternative Nobel prize”.
He is a ferocious advocate for crop genetic preservation, and the man behind the
idea of the world seed repository that is being built into solid rock on a Norwegian
island in the Artic. Cary is currently the Executive Secretary (Head) of the Global
Crop Diversity Trust.
Prior to joining the Trust as its Executive Secretary, Dr. Cary Fowler was Professor
and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development
Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He was also a Senior Advisor
to the Director General of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.
In this latter role, he represented the Future Harvest Centres of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research in negotiations on the International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.
Cary’s career in the conservation and use of crop diversity spans 30 years. He was
Program Director for the National Sharecroppers Fund / Rural Advancement Fund, a
US-based NGO engaged in plant genetic resources education and advocacy. In the 1990s,
he headed the International Conference and Programme on Plant Genetic Resources
at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which produced
the UN's first ever global assessment of the state of the world’s plant genetic
resources. He drafted and supervised negotiations of FAO’s Global Plan of Action
for Plant Genetic Resources, adopted by 150 countries in 1996. That same year he
served as Special Assistant to the Secretary General of the World Food Summit. He
is a past-member of the National Plant Genetic Resources Board of the U.S. and the
Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.
Cary is the author of several books on the subject of plant genetic resources and
more than 75 articles on the topic in agriculture, law, and development journals.
Global Crop Diversity Trust: http://www.croptrust.org/main/index.php
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