Ronnie Vernooy

Title: Genetic resources policy specialist

Duty post: Bioversity HQ, Rome, Italy

Ronnie Vernooy, a Dutch national, joined Bioversity International in October 2011. He has worked on questions related to the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity for more than 25 years in countries such as China, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Mongolia, Nepal, Nicaragua and Vietnam. From 1992 until 2010, he was a program officer specializing in community-based natural resource management with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC  [1]), Ottawa, Canada. From 2005 to 2010, he was an adjunct professor at the College of Humanities and Development of China Agricultural University in Beijing teaching community-based natural resource management. Before joining Bioversity International, from October 2010 to September 2011, he lived and worked in Mongolia  [2] providing support to the development of community-based climate change adaptation and disaster risk management strategies.

He has expertise in participatory action research including monitoring and evaluation, social and gender analysis, and capacity development. He has written and edited, jointly with research partners, briefs, papers, articles, book-chapters and books in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Mongolian.

Credentials:

PhD, Sociology of rural development, Wageningen Agricultural University, Holland
MSc (Cum Laude), Sociology of rural development, Wageningen Agricultural University, Holland

Languages:

Dutch, English, Spanish, French, German

Recent publications:

Vernooy, R. (2012). For food security, China tries an alternative to industrial agriculture.  [3] The Solutions January - February 3(1): 62-69.

Wang, Xiaoli and Vernooy, R. (2012). Beating storms and droughts: the Erdenedalai weather network in the Mongolian Gobi.  [4] Development in Practice 22(1): 104-109.

Vernooy, R. (2011). How Mongolian herders are transforming nomadic pastoralism.  [5] The Solutions October 2(5): 82-87.

Ruiz, M. and R. Vernooy (eds.) 2011. The custodians of biodiversity: sharing access to and benefits of genetic resources.  [6] Earthscan, London and Sterling, and International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.

Song, Yiching and R. Vernooy (eds.) 2010. Seeds and synergies: innovating rural development in China.  [7] Practical Action Publishing, Burton on Dunsmore and International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.