Advisory Board

Katharina Helming is a soil scientist and agronomist. She leads the research group Impact Assessment and co-leads the research area Agricultural Landscape Systems at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). She is professor for Sustainability Assessment at the University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde, Germany (University of applied sciences). She has 25 year experience of research on agriculture, soil conservation and sustainable landscape management in Europe, USA, China and Central Asia. Her current research is about societal aspects of soil management and sustainability assessment of land use changes. She has published more than 80 international scientific publications. She is member of the management team of the German BonaRes Centre.

Katharina has extensive experience in coordinating and participating in European research (FP6, FP7, H2020) including large collaborative projects (SENSOR, PLUREL, LUPIS, LIAISE) knowledge hubs (FACCE-MACSUR), Marie-Skłodowska-Curie ITN (CASTLE) as well as serving on review boards for European and national research programs. Because of her interdisciplinary knowledge on sustainable land management Katharina is frequently booked as an expert in global assessments and outlooks such as SCAR, JRC Foresight on Food Security, UN Global Environmental Outlook (GEO6), Foresight on Demand for the mission on soil health and food.

Elena Havlicek works for the Federal Office of the Environment, in the Soil Section, where she is in charge, among other things, of the domain of soil biology (policies, monitoring, and implementation). She follows the international agreements and conventions related to soils (UNCCD, SDGs, European Environment Agency, Global Soil Partnership) and she chairs the European Soil Partnership, a regional partnership of the GSP. The regional soil partnerships are working in collaboration with the FAO and are contributing to the overall objectives and activities of the GSP: the ESP addresses the priorities and specificities of the European region concerning sustainable soil management and soil protection and aims to bring together the various networks and soil related activities into a common framework. Elena Havlicek is also a member of the organizing committee of the next EUROSOIL conference (2021 Geneva).

Elena Havlicek graduated in biology with a specialization in soil sciences. She has conducted and coordinated interdisciplinary research projects in fields as diverse as paleo-environments in the context of archaeological research, functioning and management of agro-sylvo-pastoral ecosystems, transformation of alluvial ecosystems and modification of social representations and uses. She has taught (and still teaches) in various universities and she has led a university continuing education programme with a multi-disciplinary approach to ecology and environmental sciences.

Edoardo Costantini is an agronomist with a specialization in the study of soils in their natural environment (pedology). He has over 40 years of experience in research on soil genesis, classification, mapping, and conservation in Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. He led over 30 international and national projects and published over 300 papers, monographies and books focused on Sustainable Soil Management; Soil Restoration and Conservation; Soil Mapping and Geodatabases; Land Suitability for Winegrape and other Quality Crops.

Currently, dr. Costantini cooperates with the European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) and participates to an Operational Group in Italy. He does professional work as teacher and adviser on soil and plant relationships and soil conservation for farmers, students, and professionals. Until the end of 2018, he was Research Director at the Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment of the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA). In former years, he was Acting Director of the Research Centre for Agrobiology and Pedology of CREA and previously, professor of Pedology at the University of Siena. He is member of the Georgofili Academy and of the Italian National Academy of Agriculture. In 2017 he received the Norman Hudson Memorial Award of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWAC) and in 2019 the Gerold Richter Award of the European Society for Soil Conservation (ESSC).

Harry Farnsworth is currently part of Rabobank’s Carbon Bank team. The Carbon Bank is working across the F&A sector, trying to help clients of the bank transition the food and farming industry towards a healthier and more sustainable future. Harry advises on implementation practises and on farm measurements for the monitoring and measurement of regenerative farming and the impact regenerative systems have on natural capital and the ecosystem services that provides. Much of Harry’s work revolves around carbon and the carbon markets but also the burgeoning biodiversity and water markets. Soil health is at the heart of many of the initiatives of the Carbon Bank and the Carbon Bank is striving to transform the F&A sector into a key driver for a better future. Previous to Rabobank Harry worked on supply chain sustainability and scaling regenerative systems, across the food and fibre sector, and also worked in the food and beverage industry for many years previous to that. Harry has also been in advisory groups for the Cool Farm Alliance and the European Roundtable for Beef Sustainability, and is current involved with the partner advisory group for CA4SH.

Rabobank is a cooperative food & agri bank, with a strong presence in the world's major food & agriculture countries. We are dedicated to working together with customers, members, and partners to creating a more resilient living environment and tackling the big social challenges of the day. We focus on four themes: sustainable food production, financial health for everyone, sustainable growth for entrepreneurs, and sustainable housing for everyone.

Steven Van Passel is full Professor Environmental Economics at the University of Antwerp (Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Engineering Management). Steven Van Passel is vice-rector (Valorisation and development) of his university. He has a PhD in Agricultural Economics (Ghent University) and masters in Economics and in Bioscience Engineering (KU Leuven). He developed and applied the sustainable value approach to assess farm performance and developed systemic techno-economic assessments (TEA) of clean technologies. He measured the economic impact on climate change on agriculture using a continental scale Ricardian method and studied the economic benefits of climate change adaptation in agriculture. He applied and developed both revealed and stated preferences methods to value environmental externalities in both developed and developing countries. 

Andre Leu is the International Director of Regeneration International, an organization that promotes food, farming and land use systems that regenerate and stabilise climate systems, the health of the planet and people, communities, culture and local economies, democracy and peace. He has an extensive knowledge of farming and environmental systems across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australasia from over 40 years of visiting and working in over 100 countries. Andre and his wife, Julia, have an organic tropical fruit farm in Daintree, Australia. He lectures and teaches at universities, institutions and workshops around the world. He speaks at numerous conferences, seminars, workshops as well as United Nations events on every continent. He meets with governments, industry, farmers, consumers and NGOs on the multi-functional benefits of regenerative organic agriculture. He was the President of IFOAM – Organics International, the world change agent and umbrella body for the organic sector from 2011 -2017. He is the Author of ‘Poisoning our Children’ and the ‘Myths of Safe Pesticides.’

Andre has a degree in Communications, with a double major in Video/TV Production and Socio-political Theory. He has post-graduate qualifications in adult education. He has published extensively in magazines, newspapers, journals, conference proceedings, newsletters, websites and other media, as well as doing numerous media interviews for TV, Radio and online systems.

Patrick Worms, a Cambridge-educated molecular geneticist, represents the world’s premier research institution devoted to the study of the roles of trees in agricultural landcapes to policy makers in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe. World Agroforestry, a CGIAR organisation, active since the 1970s, has reported on the astonishing benefits of multi-crop agriculture involving trees in thousands of peer-reviewed publications. Patrick is also President of EURAF, the European Agroforestry Federation; a Trustee and treasurer of the International Union of Agroforestry; a member of the Steering Committee of International Land Lives Peace, which works at the interface between land degration and conflicts; a Senior Fellow of the Global Evergreening Alliance and a member of several advisory boards.

Patrick has been active at the science-policy interface since the late 1980s, with a start teaching biology in the Hindu Kush. As a young European official, he pioneered a new way of using communications to deal with the environmental legacy of communism across the former Soviet Union before leaving for the private sector and engaging with the disastrous environmental legacy of China’s Great Leap forward. This effort became the first large-scale private-sector investment in tree planting for watershed remediation in that country. With three languages, a multinational family, a career spanning four continents and a wide experience in intercultural education, Patrick received bachelors and master degrees from Cambridge University.    

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is an agency of the European Union, whose task is to provide sound, independent information on the environment. The EEA aims to support sustainable development by helping to achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment, through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policymaking agents and the public.

Dr Baritz has an MSc in forest science and a PhD in ecology and soil science. He worked as a national expert at JRC Ispra on the following topics: quality control of European greenhouse inventories on land carbon pools; European forest soil monitoring (spatial soil carbon assessment); support to implement the Forest Focus Regulation and EU's greenhouse gas monitoring mechanism; IPCC author "Land use, land-use change and forestry - LULUCF". From 2004 to 2015 Baritz was Head of Unit at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural in Germany. He worked at FOA in Rome on global soil information and indicator development; project design (soil information system Afghanistan, Global Soil Information System), and resource mobilization (soils and nutrition). Furthermore, Baritz was a member of Global Soil Partnership (GSP) Secretariat and lead of GSP-working group on global soil data harmonization and the  Soil Data Working Group of GODAN (Global Soil Data for Agriculture and Nutrition). He joined EEA in 2017. His interests are European soil condition assessment, chemicals in soils, soils, and climate change. Dr Baritz is the coordinator of the European National Reference Centres Soil.

Edgars Linde has 28 years of experience in field of consultancy in agriculture, farm management and rural development. Mr. Linde has a College level education in horticulture as well a Business Management degree in Latvian University of Agriculture. Working individually with farmers on their farm development plans, executing training and working with wider society on rural development issues have raised his professional capacity and proved importance of innovative approaches in rural sectors. Currently Mr. Edgars Linde has a board member position in the largest Latvian rural advisory company (Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre).

Additionally Edgars is head of the Latvian Rural Network Support Unit, which is responsible on national level for networking in the field of agriculture, rural development and innovation systems. Active participation in activities of European level networking organisations such as European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI), European Network for Rural Development (ENRD) and regional Nordic-Baltic network provides access to wide information, knowledge and experience exchange between countries and regions.

Mr. Edgars Linde is actively promoting cooperation between European rural and agricultural advisory services. He is a board member in association “European Forum for Agricultural and Rural Advisory Services” (EUFRAS), which has been established in 2014.