I joined the Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Sciences Division (AFNS) in February 1979 after completing my PhD in Food Science and Technology in New Zealand on a Commonwealth Scholarship. I was originally hired to work as a Program Officer for Asia in the Post-Production Systems Program (PPS) based in Singapore, but at short notice my assignment was moved to Edmonton, Alberta! Arriving there in February instead of Singapore was a real test of adaptability! At that time the small PPS team was brought together at the University of Alberta to develop a systems approach to program development. Joe Hulse, the Director of AFNS at the time, believed program staff should work close to their peers at Canadian universities. As a result, the individual AFNS programs were located at different universities across Canada.
In 1983, I moved to the Latin America Regional Office in Bogota, Colombia and, following the closure of that office for security reasons in late 1989, I worked from the new Regional Office in Montevideo, Uruguay. This was quite a challenging period, as the family (myself, wife Maria Eugenia and our toddler son) had to stay in a hotel in Ottawa for three months until all was ready in Bogota for the office relocation. At that point, we returned home, with one week to pack up everything and say farewell. The situation was tense: we had bodyguards right up until boarding the plane to leave!
When the budget cuts came in 1990, we returned to Ottawa. After IDRC”s reorganization, I was the only member of the PPS team to carry on, as AFNS was cut back considerably and merged into the new Environment and Natural Resources Division .
During my IDRC career, I focused on supporting and building applied research and development projects on PPS problems, mainly in Asia and Latin America. I sought out researchers and encouraged them to work with farmers and fisherfolk and, later, agrifood industry groups in research projects to solve problems in their food systems so as to reduce food losses and improve their incomes. Projects were supported in improving post-harvest operations, food processing, and agro-industry development and, later, in linking farmers to markets in value chains. This subsequently led to experimentation through IDRC’s FoodLinks Secretariat, which I directed, supporting research on the improvement and development of linkages between producers of tropical products and local private-sector food companies, in the developing world and in Canada.
I left IDRC in September 1998, just short of 20 years after arriving. I was very touched by the Centre’s farewell party, where I received a model golden banana as IDRC’s “top banana”: a fun reference to the Mona Lisa organic banana project that was a prominent FoodLinks project at the time.
I treasure my time at IDRC, being privileged to be able to work with so many creative people across many countries, to bring attention to the importance of considering what happens after crops, animals, fish, and forest products are produced or harvested: the post-production activities where products are moved through processing, marketing, and consumption, the value chain. In many developing countries, these activities were often neglected areas for research, despite being essential for food security and income generation. I was very pleased to see a Rural Agroindustry Network of technical groups take shape across many Latin American and Caribbean countries during my tenure, which built on the IDRC-supported projects in the region, as a means of information sharing and technical exchange. It is still functioning today.
Since then, I have worked as a consultant for several years with long-term assignments in Ecuador and Sudan as well as on project formulation, review, and evaluation and several writing contracts with a number of agencies. I also held a senior position with the Farm Products Council of Canada in Ottawa, which focused on specific food systems in Canada. During this time, I was invited back to FAO in Rome for a six-month assignment to review its portfolio of food loss assessment projects as well as to assist in the organization of international meetings and projects related to food loss and waste. I really enjoyed this work, as well as living in Rome!
I am now retired, settled in Ottawa with my wife Maria Eugenia, and making frequent trips to New York to visit our son Andrew.
Bulletin 77
July 2025