Geoff Tansey is a writer and consultant who has worked in several of the world’s poorer countries on food, agriculture and development issues since the mid-1970s, after graduating with a BSc in Soil Science (1972) and MSc in History and Social Studies of Science (1975). In 1975, he helped to found and edit the journal Food Policy and later worked on various agricultural development projects in Turkey, Mongolia, Albania and Kazakstan.
His work on development and disarmament themes in the 80s was widely appreciated and he later became an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in Peace Studies at University of Bradford (UK).
He is a Director and member of the Food Ethics Council (UK) and the TRIPS consultant to the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva and the Quaker International Affairs Programme (QIAP) in Ottawa.
Publications include “The Food System A Guide” and two discussion papers for QUNO on trade, intellectual property, food security and biotechnology and biodiversity and “The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security”, which won the Derek Cooper Award in Guild of Food Writers Awards 2009.
In 2008 he received the Derek Cooper Award for best food campaigner and educator at the ninth BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards at the NEC, Birmingham (see special edition of the Radio 4’s Food programme (28th November) and report on the Hebden Bridge Web.
An early prostate cancer diagnosis in April 2008 led him to make a more personal investigation into the links between diet and cancer, some of which was broadcast on the BBC Food Programme in June 09.
From 2006-2010 he worked as a Joseph Rowntree Visionary for a Just and Peaceful World.
He is now on the board of the UK Food Group and has set up The new Food Systems Academy website.
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