Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg
Danielle Nierenberg in 2012
Born	(1978-02-27) February 27, 1978 Missouri
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Tufts University; Monmouth College
Occupation	Author, journalist
Website
daniellenierenberg.com

Danielle J. Nierenberg (born February 27, 1978) is an American activist,^[1] author and journalist.

In 2013, Nierenberg co-founded Food Tank: The Food Think Tank and currently serves as president of that organization.

She is also known for her work addressing sustainable agriculture, on behalf of The Guardian,^[2] Bloomberg Businessweek,^[3] and the Huffington Post.^[4] and has had opinion-editorials published in the largest circulating newspapers in 40 states and also The New York Times,^[5] The Wall Street Journal,^[6] USA Today^[7] as well as the largest circulation newspaper in more than 70 countries including The China Daily.^[8][9] She routinely appears in major broadcast media including MSNBC,^[10] Fox News^[11] and Al Jazeera.^[12]

Her organization Food Tank is the official North American Partner of the United Nation’s International Year of Family Farming with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).^[13]

She has spoken at numerous international and United States events focused on food and agriculture issues including the World Food Prize,^[14] the Clinton School of Public Service,^[15] The New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference,^[16] TEDx Manhattan,^[17] Edible Institute,^[18] and Terra Madre,^[19] among others.

She founded Nourishing the Planet while working at the Worldwatch Institute.^[20]

Nierenberg has authored and contributed to several reports and books, including Correcting Gender Myopia: Gender Equity, Women's Welfare, and the Environment, Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, Eating Planet 2012, Food and Agriculture: The Future of Sustainability.^[21]

Early life and education

Nierenberg was born and raised in Defiance, Missouri.^[22][23] She holds an MSc in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University^[24] and a BA in environmental policy from Monmouth College, Illinois.^[25] She has been a vegetarian since she was a teenager.^[9]

Career

After she completed her education at Monmouth College, she joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Dominican Republic^[26] and worked with farmers and urban school kids.^[22] Since then, she has been working to highlight how food system can become more sustainable.^[23] Following her volunteer work at Peace Corps, she joined Tufts University and then joined Science and Environmental Health Network as an Internee. Later on she joined Worldwatch Institute.^[22]

According to her, she has been focused on raising awareness about food quality and availability because she "is obsessed with food." She wants "to know what she’s having for dinner at lunchtime."^[23] She is a reviewer for the Africa Chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change WGII AR5 First Order Draft and serves on the Advisory Group for the Zero Hunger Partnership, along with Sir Gordon Conway and Heifer International President Pierre Ferrari. In 2013, she joined the Young Professional's Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) steering committee.^[27]

Worldwatch Institute

Nierenberg was appointed at the Worldwatch Institute in 2001 as a Food and Agricultural Senior Researcher. In this position she managed several research projects on emerging infectious diseases related to the food system, gender and population, climate change and agriculture, the global meat economy, and innovations in sustainable agriculture.^[28]

She was the co-founder and director of the Nourishing the Planet project housed at the Worldwatch Institute.^[29] This post involved overseeing environmental research, communications and development for the Nourishing the Planet project, as well as leading the Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group. As part of this role, she spent 18 months in Sub-Saharan Africa, looking for solutions to poverty and hunger in 30 different countries.^[30] While working there, she managed a grant of US$1.34 million to assess the state of agricultural innovations.^[28][31]

Nierenberg produced State of the World 2011 with the help of 60 authors from all over the world. She also organized The State of the World Symposium in January 2011. She left Worldwatch Institute and Nourishing The Planet in 2012.^[28]

Food Tank

In 2013, she co-founded Food Tank: The Food Think Tank, a non-profit organization.^[23] The organization aims to offer solutions and environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty by creating a network of connections and information.^[32]

Nierenberg co-founded Food Tank (501c3) in 2013 as an organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. Already, the organization boasts more than twenty major institutional partners including Bioneers, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Christensen Fund, IFPRI, IFAD, the Global Forum on Agriculture Research, Oxfam America, Slow Food USA, the UNEP, the UNDP, FAO, and the Sustainable Food Trust. She has also recruited more than 40 leaders in food and agriculture policies and advocacy work as part of Food Tank’s Advisory Board. The organization hosted the 1st Annual Food Tank Summit in January 2015 partnering with The George Washington University.^[33]

Published work

She has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world, and innovations in sustainable agriculture.^[28]

Her knowledge of global agriculture issues has been cited widely in more than 8,000 major print and broadcast outlets worldwide, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,^[5] the Chicago Tribune,^[34] USA Today,^[7] The China Daily.^[8] The Washington Post,^[35] Le Monde,^[36] Bloomberg Businessweek,^[37] MSNBC,^[38] Al Jazeera,^[39] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,^[40] the International Herald Tribune, BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, The Guardian (UK),^[41] The Telegraph (UK),^[42] Voice of America, the Times of India, and the Sydney Morning Herald.^[43]

Nierenberg's first book was titled Correcting Gender Myopia: Gender Equity, Women's Welfare, and the Environment and was published by the Worldwatch Institute in 2002. In 2005, she wrote Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry, which is a paper that presents the effects of the growth of factory farming, cataloging the harmful effects it can have on the world, especially in developing countries.^[44] In 2012, she wrote Eating Planet 2012. The book was presented during an event, A Sustainable Hunger, at the Literature Festival in Mantua in September.^[45]

In partnership with the James Beard Foundation, Nierenberg and Food Tank publish an annual Good Food Org Guide, a directory of non-profit organizations working for a better food system ^[46]

Speaker

Nierenberg has spoken at hundreds of major conferences and events all over the world, including The World Food Prize/Borlaug Dialogues (2010 and 2012),^[26] the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development (2012),^[47] the Third Annual James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards (2013),^[21] UNFCCC COP 16 (2012), the Barilla Center for Food Nutrition Annual Forums (2011 2012, 2013),^[21] the Aspen Institute Environment Forum (2011),^[48] the European Commission Green Week (2010), Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium (2014), National Geographic’s Food: A Forum (2014),^[49] the Sustainable Food Summit (2012), the Fourth National Conference for Women in Sustainable Agriculture (2013),^[50] the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders Network (2011), the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation (2011), the Hilton Humanitarian Awards (2013).^[51]

She served as a juror for the 2011 Buckminster Prize Challenge and as an evaluator for the 2012 AGFUND International Prize for Pioneering Human Development Projects.^[27]

Selected bibliography

• Correcting Gender Myopia: Gender Equity, Women's Welfare, and the Environment (2002) ISBN 978-1878071644
• Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry (2005) ISBN 978-1878071774
• State of the World 2007 (Chapter 3 – Farming the Cities) (2007) ISBN 978-0393329230
• State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet (2011) ISBN 978-0393338805
• Eating Planet–Nutrition Today: A Challenge for Mankind and for the Planet (2012) ISBN 978-8866270294
• Eating Planet 2012 (2012)
• Food and Agriculture: The Future of Sustainability (2012)

See also

• Nourishing the Planet
• Food Tank: The Food Think Tank
• Worldwatch Institute

References

External links

• Official website