Louise Fresco

Louise Fresco
Born	(1952-02-11) 11 February 1952 Meppel, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Wageningen University
Website	LouiseOFresco.com

Louise Ottilie Fresco (born 11 February 1952 in Meppel) is a Dutch scientist and writer known for her work on globally sustainable food production.

Career in academia

Fresco has been the President of the Wageningen University & Research Executive Board since 1 July 2014. She is a professor at Wageningen University and a corresponding member of Belgium's Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences.

Fresco is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) since 2009, a foreign member of the French Academy of Agriculture, a non-resident member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry in Stockholm, a corresponding member of the Real Academia de Ingeniería in Madrid, a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities and a foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Class of Natural Sciences in Brussels. She is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of the Academy of Science South Africa.

Other activities

As of April 2019 she is Independent Non-Executive Director of the Board of Directors of Syngenta, with special attention for scientific innovations for the purpose of healthy, sustainable food production. She is a member of the Trilateral Commission, member of the editorial board of the literary journal De Gids, a member of the Council of Advisors of the World Food Prize and a member of the Council of Advisors of the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food. She is also columnist at NRC Handelsblad and chair of the selectionboard of the Johannes van Dam Prize. She is also Board Member Foundation of the Dutch National Opera & Ballet Fund and member of the Ambassadors of the National Holocaust Museum (in development).

In 2020, Fresco was appointed by the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe to serve as a member of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, chaired by Mario Monti.

Bibliography

Novels

• Bambusa (1990)
• De kosmopolieten (2003)
• De tuin van de sultan van Rome (2005)
• De utopisten (2007)
• De Idealisten (2018)
• Hamburgers uit de moestuin(2019)

Non-fiction

• Schaduwdenkers & lichtzoekers (1998) (Huizingalezing)
• Nieuwe spijswetten: over voedsel en verantwoordelijkheid (2006)
• Het einde van de universiteit (volgens een rapport van de Universiteit van Oeloemia) (2007) (diesrede UvA)
• Hamburgers in het paradijs : voedsel in tijden van schaarste en overvloed (2012)

Academic

• Cassava in shifting cultivation: a systems approach to agricultural technology development in Africa(1986) (thesis)

External links

• LouiseOFresco.com website of Louise O. Fresco
• weblogs.nrc.nl weblog and columns in NRC Handelsblad (language: Dutch)
• Louise Fresco at TED
  • "We need to feed the whole world" (TED2009)
• The marathon interview VPRO 1 August 2008, Radio 1, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, with interviewer Rob van Hattum ( listen) (language: Dutch)
• resignation letter of Louise Fresco, FAO In the press leaked letter of resignation to the Director General of the FAO. The Guardian, May 14, 2006
• List of publications of prof.dr.ir. L.O. Fresco in NARCIS – The Duth National Academic Research and Collaborations Information System