HCSS is proud to announce that Freek Vossenaar has joined us as Strategic Advisor Food and Agriculture!
Mr. Vossenaar is a retired senior official of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature.
He graduated in agricultural economics at Wageningen University before entering the Foreign Agricultural Service. He started his career in Paris, with an accreditation to the OECD. Later, he had postings as agricultural counsellor at the Dutch embassies in Tokyo and in Seoul, after which he served in Bangkok with a regional responsibility. He was head of the International Nature Management department in the ministry and was spokesperson for several multilateral organizations. In 2002, he was posted in Tokyo again as agricultural counsellor, followed by a posting in Buenos Aires in a regional capacity.
Vossenaar played an important role in making the soy trade more sustainable with his involvement with the Round Table on Responsible Soy.
In 2014 he was appointed as special envoy of the Ministry of Agriculture to develop new business opportunities for the private sector. He led economic missions to Central Asia, India and the Middle East and gained wide experience with complex trade issues and market access negotiations.
He wrote several books, about Thailand and Japan, and was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government in 2024. Vossenaar has been advisor on food security issues for various philanthropic institutions.
On joining HCSS as Strategic Advisor, Vossenaar stated:
Many of the critical challenges the world is facing are affected by food production, including climate change, water shortage and deforestation. That is why we need to treat food security and affordability as critical issues for global prosperity.
I hope that my skills and experience can contribute to the critical analyses by HCSS of the national and international challenges that our societies face.
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