Antoine Foure: Expert, Ecocert Group

Antoine Foure: Expert, Ecocert Group

Antoine Faure joined the Ecocert Group in 2001 and has over 18 years of experience in conformity assessment in the organic agriculture sector. With a Master degree in Agriculture (Engineer), he currently works as Senior Adviser in the area of certification systems for organic operators, control bodies and competent authorities (national systems for approving control bodies). Antoine has also developed a specific expertise in the interpretation of regulations and norms.

As Ecocert Group representative, he works internationally in relation with several institutions or competent authorities including the European Commission. As Vice-President of EOCC (European Organic Certifier Council), he is in charge also of the coordination of the Working Group Import within EOCC and in consequence has to manage daily import issues.

Dr Andre Gouws: Economist

Dr Andre Gouws: Economist

Dr Gouws is an Independent Economist and International Trade Consultant with extensive skills in Local Economic Development. He has over 30-years’ experience in trade development (and associated enterprise development);16-years’ experience in regional and local economic development; 13-years’ experience in policy and strategy development.

André holds a D. Com in Economics from the University of Pretoria. His doctoral thesis focuses on the determinants of exports with an outlook on the critical policy implications. His M. Com dissertation looked at export support measures with special reference to South Africa and the impact of the General Export Incentive Scheme. He developed an econometric model of South African exports and used this to measure the impact that export incentives had on export volumes.

Beside his academic experience, he has a passion for trade promotion and development. During 2003 he contributed to the establishment of the “Investment and Trade Policy Centre” at the University of Pretoria. Andre worked with the UN (ITC) to bring “Trade Secrets” to South Africa (now published by the dti) and was also the first Managing Director of a Trade Point in South Africa. He has had a book, “Export Issues for Entrepreneurs” published by Juta and is currently writing another focusing on exhibitions. He has also edited the “Export Marketing Handbook” and written a chapter in Oxford University Press’s “International Marketing”.

Andrew Jones: Director, Fair Venture

Andrew Jones: Director, Fair Venture

Andrew Jones is an independent consultant specialising in sustainable business and supply chain development for small and medium exporters in the food, cosmetic and healthcare sectors with a particular focus on market access requirements in Europe. He obtained his degree in Food Science in 1984, and for the first 10 years of his career he worked for Intermediate Technology Development Group (now known as Practical Action) on food processing projects with small business entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka for 3 years, Peru for one year and then was based in their Head Office. In 1995 he switched careers and joined The Body Shop International Community Trade team sourcing natural ingredients from small community-based organisations in Ghana, Kenya, Somalia and other countries. After gaining his MBA in 2003, he started his consultancy business in 2004. 

Since 2004 Andrew has worked as an independent consultant for development agencies including CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports), Swisscontact, SIPPO, UNIDO, UNCTAD, ITC, PhytoTrade and Fairtrade Foundation. Recently he completed a 4-year export coaching programme for CBI in South Africa where he had the pleasure and privilege of coaching 14 small and medium companies from across the whole country on exporting natural ingredients to Europe. The project started with building the foundations of understanding market access requirements and buyer’s expectations, and then focused on developing the performance of the companies in the international arena through participation in trade fairs.

Beauty Mokgwamme, Training Officer, Mohair Empowerment Trust

Beauty Mokgwamme, Training Officer, Mohair Empowerment Trust

Beauty Mokgwamme is the recently appointed Empowerment and Training Officer at the Mohair South Africa Empowerment Trust. The Empowerment Trust was set up to promote black economic empowerment within the mohair industry.

Beauty’s role is to promote black economic empowerment within the mohair industry which is taking important steps to address sustainable and fair processes in the industry as well as to identify potential projects and assess their viability. She was previously with the Grootfontein Agricultural Development Institute in Cradock in the Eastern Cape.

Cristina Miranda Gozalvez, Deputy Head of Unit, DG Agri, EU Commission

Cristina Miranda Gozalvez, Deputy Head of Unit, DG Agri, EU Commission

Cristina Miranda Gozalvez is an Agriculture Engineer with specialisation in agricultural economy and rural sociology- University of Cordoba (Spain). She Graduated with honours – with complementary internship education from two EU universities: Institut National Agronomique de Paris-Grignon INA (France) and the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering of the University of Ghent (Belgium).

She has a master’s degree in “European Communities” from the Diplomatic School of Madrid (Spain) and she is currently working at the European Commission, in the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development, as Deputy Head of Unit AGRI A.1 "Global issues and relations with ACP countries"

Edward Russell, Consultant

Edward Russell, Consultant

Edward Russell has been active in the field of Sustainable Development for the last 30 years with practical experience in LED and the sustainable use of community natural resources. He headed a development training and research programme (Unit) at the University of Natal in South Africa for 7 years. He also served as Assistant Resident Representative and Head of Sustainable Development in the UNDP South African Country Office for 7 years, during which he served as country focal point for the World Summit on Sustainable Development for UNDP under the UN Resident Coordinator.

Edward worked with the UNDP Energy & Environment Group in the African Region for 6 years. Since retiring from UNDP, he has undertaken numerous assignments relating to sustainable development and Climate Change in many regions for several agencies and has recently been working to ‘green’ production with emerging farmers in the mohair and wool sector in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

Eric Nohamba, Commercial Farmer

Eric Nohamba, Commercial Farmer

Eric Nohamba is a citrus farmer from Konzi citrus farm which is situated from north of Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape. After completing his 3-year agricultural diploma in farm business management at Fort Cox college in Middledrift, he was employed by the Ciskei agricultural corporation in the Kat River area and was there in 1989 when the Ciskei government initiated an agricultural land privatization program. Eric took the opportunity and applied for the farm and was delighted when this was successful. He has been farming since 1993.

Eric is a committed farmer and makes contribution to the citrus industry as well as local organised agriculture. He serves on the CGA board and is a member of CGDC which is citrus transformation. At a local level he is also a chairman of Alice/Kat farmer's co.op. He also serves in the Kat River Water Users Association

Joyene Isaacs: Head of Department, Western Cape Department of Agriculture

Joyene Isaacs: Head of Department, Western Cape Department of Agriculture

Joyene Isaacs holds a B Sc Honours with Plant Protection and Plant Pathology as majors from the University of the Western Cape. She has worked for two different NGOS, in agricultural development, in 3 Provinces from 1991 to 1996. She joined the Agricultural Research Council in 1996 at INFRUITEC and was appointed as the assistant-director: Resource-limited Producers’ Programme in 1998, taking on the responsibility of both Infruitec and Nietvoorbij campuses.

Joyene was appointed as Director of Farmer Settlement at the Department of Agriculture: Western Cape in 2002 and in 2004, as Chief Director: Farmer Support and Development. From 1 April 2006 Joyene was appointed as Head of Department for the Department of Agriculture, giving her a taste of managing more than 800 staff members through 7 programmes and giving effect to agricultural development in the Western Cape to the benefit of all. She has published and presented a range of publications, from scientific to development papers and attended various conferences, seminars and workshops (Foresight process of Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology and Policy Working Group: Agriculture for the National Department of Agriculture) where she facilitated and chaired different sessions

Justin Chadwick: Chief Executive Officer, Citrus Growers Association

Justin Chadwick: Chief Executive Officer, Citrus Growers Association

Justin Chadwick has an MSc Agricultural Economics degree from Natal University (now University of Kwazulu Natal). He started his career working for the Department of Agriculture at Cedara Agricultural College – involved in lecturing and research. After a short period as a private consultant, Justin joined Canegrowers Association, where he rose to Director of Agricultural Economic Services. After ten years with Canegrowers, Justin was the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA). In this position he has guided the CGA’s involvement in research, market access, transformation, information, consumer assurance and representation. During his tenure export volumes have grown from 1 million to 2 million tons – the second largest citrus exporter in the world.

Karen Posthumus: Head of Human Resources, BKB Ltd

Karen Posthumus: Head of Human Resources, BKB Ltd

Karen has obtained a B. Com (Industrial Psychology, Private Law) and B. Com Honours (Industrial Psychology) through UNISA as well as an MBA through NMU Business School. She has 30 years’ experience in Human Resources and has held several senior HR positions within the logistics, retail, production and agricultural industries and is currently heading up the HR division for BKB Ltd.

Massimo De Luca: Head of Trade and Economics, Delegation of the European Union to South Africa

Massimo De Luca: Head of Trade and Economics, Delegation of the European Union to South Africa

Massimo De Luca took up duty as Head of Trade and Economics at the EU Delegation to South Africa (Pretoria) in 2014 after five years in Nigeria where he filled the same position. Prior to it, he spent six years working in DG Competition (European Commission handling a number of antitrust cases in the agricultural, petrochemical, media and basic industries sectors. A graduate of Catholic University Milan and Trinity College Dublin (LL.M), he qualified and practiced as solicitor both in Italy and Ireland. His interests focus on international trade, development economics, competition and global economic governance.

Neo Masithela: Chairperson, African Farmers Association of South Africa

Neo Masithela: Chairperson, African Farmers Association of South Africa

Neo Masithela is the national chairperson of African Farmers Association of South Africa (AFASA), former MEC of Agriculture and the chairperson of agriculture and land affairs portfolio committee in South Africa.

Neo left public office in 2010 to focus on his entrepreneurship and property business. He is a free state farmer and agriculture transformation practitioner. He is also the chairperson of Winter Cereal Trust representing the minister in the trust. He is PhD candidate with Davinci Institute of Technology, and he holds master’s degree in development studies from the Free State University.

Noel Oettlé, Acting Director, Environmental Monitoring Group

Noel Oettlé, Acting Director, Environmental Monitoring Group

Noel Oettlé attended university in Cape Town and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Agricultural Development from the University of London. Prior to joining EMG in 1998, he served as Director of the Farmer Support Group at the university of KwaZulu Natal.

His work focuses enabling marginalised rural people to improve the quality of their lives by enhancing their livelihoods through the sustainable use of natural resources, institutional development and improved market access. This includes providing support to organic certified small-scale producers to conserve biodiversity in their production systems, adapt their land use practices to climatic variability, establish co-operatives and enter global markets with organic and Fairtrade certified products. He previously served as a Director of Fairtrade Africa and the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO)

Richard Schouten: Director, Fresh Produce Centre/Dutch Produce Association

Richard Schouten: Director, Fresh Produce Centre/Dutch Produce Association

Richard is the director of Fresh Produce Centre/DPA. Fresh Produce Centre represents the interests of businesses involved in the sale and marketing of fruit and vegetables and is a source of knowledge and inspiration. Its members account for over 80% of total sales of fruit and vegetables in the Netherlands, which are worth around € 16-17 billion (including growers’ associations). Fresh Produce Centre has around 320 members. The members are trading companies and growers’ associations involved in the sale and marketing of fruit and vegetables. They are specialized in the domestic wholesale, import, export, treatment, processing, packaging, storage and trans-shipment of fruit and vegetables.

Dr Vuyo Mahlati: President, African Farmers Association of South Africa

Dr Vuyo Mahlati: President, African Farmers Association of South Africa

Dr Vuyo Mahlati is the President of African Farmers Association of South Africa (AFASA). In September 2018 she was appointed by the President to Chair the Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture. She is a social entrepreneur with a wool processing plant in rural Butterworth Eastern Cape. Her factory is Africa’s first Indigenous goats Cashmere processing plant. She is serving her second term as member of South Africa’s National Planning Commission (2010-2020) that released the National Development Plan. 

Vuyo is a member of the IDC Agroprocessing Competitiveness Fund. She holds a PhD from the University of Stellenbosch. Her thesis focused on the role of value chains in mainstreaming rural entrepreneurs into global markets. She obtained her M Sc from the UK London School of Economics.

Kirsten Watson: Pogramme Manager, Natural Resource Management, Flower Valley Conservation Trust

Kirsten Watson: Pogramme Manager, Natural Resource Management, Flower Valley Conservation Trust

Kirsten Watson has worked for the Flower Valley Conservation Trust since 2016 as the environmental coordinator and conservation manager for the Sustainable Harvesting Programme. Her role specialises in the development of an assurance system for the harvesting of fynbos and extension work across the industry. She has more recently been involved with the implementation of a Land User Incentive Alien Invasive Clearing Project as part of the Agulhas Biodiversity Initiative.

Kirsten has further experience working as a conservation officer for a wind energy impact assessment on wildlife with the Endangered Wildlife Trust. Her previous work at the South African National Biodiversity Institute involved developing traceability systems for illegal cycads using stable isotope ratios. Kirsten holds a BSC in Ecology and Zoology, BSC Honours in Botany and MSc in Conservation Biology from the University of Cape Town.