FOOD ETHICS COUNCIL - Key Persons
Abi is the project lead for the Food Ethics Council's Dairy Project. Abi has an MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security from the Royal Agricultural University and has spent the last two years working within the Rural Policy Centre at SRUC (Scotland's Rural College). She has worked across a wide range of environmental research projects, but has a passion and expertise in sustainable agriculture and food systems transformation.
Abi has also worked as a network coordinator for SEFARI Gateway, supporting effective knowledge exchange between researchers and external stakeholders. She is passionate about creating strong relationships between researchers, policy colleagues, farmers and rural communities and believes that participatory research and empathic stakeholder engagement are vital for fairer, sustainable and resilient food systems.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Independent Consultant, Adviser
- Independent Consultant, Advisor and Social Entrepreneur
Albert Tucker is currently an independent consultant, adviser and social entrepreneur. He is a leading figure in the fairtrade movement, community regeneration and sustainable development. A trusted advocate for poorer small scale farmers in global trade and policy, he has a strong track record in leading and building successful social enterprises and farmer to market supply chains, working to multiple bottom lines e.g. Cafédirect, Divine Chocolate, and Twin Trading. He has been a champion and advocate for global social justice for many years. He is Chairman of Karma Cola Foundation supporting communities in Sierra Leone and marketing premium soft drinks globally.
He has worked in partnerships to support and train small scale farmers in developing countries to use trade to develop their communities, improve their income and protect their environment. He has had a strong track record with leading social development funders, in particular - Comic Relief and Big Lottery Fund - financing UK and International development. He has an MA degree in Social Policy and Administration.
Beth's role is to strengthen the food citizenship movement across the UK, supporting organisations to make the shift to treating people as citizens and not consumers. She believes in the power of people and communities to influence food systems, making them fairer for people and planet. Beth supports charities, ethical businesses and other organisations and movements to amplify and connect the great work that is happening across the UK.
Beth's previous role was in the UK Portfolio of the National Lottery Community Fund where she worked for many years focusing on food justice and access, and digital transition in civil society. Beth lives in Belfast with her family and a little dog called Duncan.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Member of the Council
- Trustee
Chloe Donovan is the founder of an outdoor education and farming project working with children and families in Suffolk. Chloe is a Trustee of the Food Ethics Council and former Chair of the Youth Engagement Advisory Group for the Canal and River Trust. She is a passionate advocate for the need to increase younger people's engagement with the countryside, food production and environmental social action.
She is a member of the Advisory Council and a former Trustee for Step Up To Serve, the organisation behind the #iwill campaign, which aims to substantially increase the number of young people taking part in meaningful social action across the UK. Chloe has engaged extensively with the wider youth sector through a variety of paid and voluntary roles; from being a member of the UK Youth Parliament in her early teens to coordinating national conferences and events to promote best practice and third sector collaboration as part of broader social action and youth participation programmes.
Chloe spent a lot of time exploring the countryside when growing up in the outskirts of Norwich and in recent years has taken over organising Beccles Farmers Market, one of the biggest in the East of England, which her grandparents first established over 19 years ago.
Job Titles:
- Project and Office Coordinator
Clare's role is to keep the organisation running smoothly operationally, and to provide project and research support across the team.
Clare has worked on sustainability issues in a variety of settings over the last 20 years, and loves to support initiatives which bring positive change for people and planet. She has particular experience in regional development, community-led sustainable building and renewable energy projects.
Before becoming involved in the world of food ethics, Clare co-managed an award winning natural burial ground and nature reserve, consisting of 30 acres of wildflower meadow - home to over 30 species of butterfly and 18 different species of bee. She is passionate about expanding her own understanding of the indivisible nature of soil, plant, animal and human health, and the intricacies of that. Clare is an enthusiastic grower of vegetables and supporter of her local community farm and seed bank. She is never happier than when communing with the cows and sheep while helping out on local conservation grazing projects.
Clare studied Global Futures at Bath Spa University, where she wrote her dissertation on ‘The theory and practice of the Ethical Consumer'.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Member of Defra 's Consumer Stakeholder Consultative Group
Dan leads the team at the Food Ethics Council and is responsible for strategy and fundraising, plus management of the overall work programme. Dan has worked on food sustainability issues for around 20 years, leading work on a range of issues, from our relationship with meat to tackling household food insecurity to power dynamics in the food system. He writes a regular monthly column for the Grocer, a leading food sector magazine.
Dan holds, or has held, a number of senior advisory roles. Dan is a member of Defra's Consumer Stakeholder Consultative Group, the Food Standards Agency Consumer Stakeholder Forum and on the External Advisory Board for the Global Food and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds. Dan previously chaired the Sustainable Food Supply Chains Commission and was appointed as one of WWF's LiveWell Leaders in Europe.
He formerly led Forum for the Future's work on sustainable food, where he advised many of the world's leading businesses and previously worked for a food manufacturing company. Dan has an MSc in Environmental Technology (specialising in Business and Sustainability) from Imperial College London and a BA (Hons) in Geography from University of Cambridge.
Outside of the world of food, Dan is a fair weather cyclist, culminating each year in a charity bike ride, cycling from London to Paris in 24 hours. He's also a keen supporter of social enterprise.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Council
- Trustee
- Author, Co
- Writer and Philosopher
Dr Julian Baggini is the author, co-author or editor of over 20 books including The Godless Gospel, How The World Thinks, The Virtues of the Table and The Ego Trick (all Granta), The Edge of Reason (Yale University Press) and, most recently, The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well (Princeton University Press).
He was the founding editor of The Philosophers' Magazine and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research, Demos and Counterpoint. He has served as Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent and has been a member of the Food Ethics Council since 2016.
His website is JulianBaggini.com.
Job Titles:
- Emeritus Professor of Food and Social Policy in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick
Elizabeth Dowler is Emeritus Professor of Food and Social Policy in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. A registered public health nutritionist, she has worked in many parts of the world with agricultural, health, social and planning sectors, and for international agencies. She was a member of the Defra Council of Food Policy Advisers, and has served on expert panels for the Food Standards agency and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Before she retired, her research included: rights based approaches to food poverty; food security; nutrition and public health; evaluating food/nutrition policy and local initiatives; ‘alternative' food systems and networks, especially consumers' perspectives and benefits and exploring ‘reconnection'. She contributed to evaluating 10 years of the Scottish Diet Action Plan and of Food and Wellbeing Wales. She co-authored Reconnecting Consumers, Producers and Food: exploring alternatives (2008) Berg: Oxford.
Ian farms in partnership with his wife Gilly. Thrales End is located on the Herts Beds border and has been practicing conservation/regenerative agriculture for a decade. A third of the acres are now devoted to habitat creation and restoration.
An early career working in London awakened Ian to a huge disconnect between the food people eat and how it is produced. He has spent a lot of his working career helping young people reconnect with food, farming, biodiversity and the associated career opportunities through his own business and involvement with various charities.
For example, Ian founded Open Farm Sunday, now hosted by LEAF, which welcomes visitors onto UK farms in June each year. And the work of his and Gilly's charity, The Farmschool, delivers creative programmes for secondary school aged children in GCSE and A level subjects. They also run seasonal farming festivals at the Pop-Up Farm.
Ian is a trustee of LEAF and the Ernest Cook Trust. Other interests include writing a column for the Farmers Weekly, being a UK representative of the Global Farmer Network and a member of the Agricultural Forum and Cambridge Agritech.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Council
- Trustee
- Trustee of the Food Ethics Council and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Aberdeen
Nigel Dower joined the University of Aberdeen in 1967 where he taught until 2004, with the exception of three years teaching Philosophy in Zimbabwe (1983-86) and five months as Gillespie Visiting Professor, College of Wooster, Ohio in 2000. He was Head of the Department of Philosophy 1996-1999 and 2000-2001. In June 2004 he took early retirement in order to pursue his interests in ‘exploring ethics in a globalised world' through teaching, lectures, writing and consultancy and also to spend more time in the voluntary sector in such organisations as Aberdeen for a Fairer World, One World Week, Aberdeen Interfaith Group and the United Nations Association.
His interest in global issues is also inspired by his Quaker faith that there is ‘that of God' in everyone, and he has also served until recently on a central committee called Quake Peace & Social Witness. He was visiting Professor in the University of Akureyri, Iceland four times from 2004 to 2010, and Visiting Professor in Colorado State University, Fort Collins in January-May 2006 and January-May 2008.
His main research interests are in the field of the ethics/philosophy of development, environment and international relations. He taught for many years on the ethics of international relations, covering normative theories, war and peace, theories of justice/human rights and global citizenship, and on the ethics of development, environment and technology. He has also taught various other courses on the ethics of sustainable development.
In 1983 his first book was published entitled World Poverty - Challenge and Response (Ebor Press), and in 1997 he wrote World Ethics - the New Agenda for the Edinburgh University Press (1998, 2nd edition 2007) and is Editor of its Edinburgh Studies in Global Ethics. His interest in development ethics is reflected in membership of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA), of which he was President (2002-2006). In 1997-1999, as one of the Associate Directors of the Centre for Philosophy, Technology & Society (which operated from 1990 to 2002), he led a research project on the idea of global citizenship and how educational courses at Undergraduate level might be developed. This resulted inter alia in Global Citizenship - A Critical Reader, edited by Nigel Dower and John Williams (EUP 2002) and An Introduction to Global Citizenship (EUP 2003). In 2009 he published a book on The Ethics of War and Peace (Polity). In 2009 he received an Honorary Doctorate (TD hc) for his work in global ethics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Council
- Treasurer
- Trustee
- Retired / Non - Executive Director
- Treasurer and Trustee )
Patti Whaley is Treasurer and Trustee of the Food Ethics Council. Patti has been active in a range of social justice and sustainability charities for over 30 years. She was at the Amnesty International Secretariat for 11 years as Director of Information Technology and subsequently as Deputy Secretary General, and was then Director of Finance and Resources at the sustainability charity Forum for the Future.
She has served on the boards of ActionAid UK, ActionAid Ireland, and the British Institute of Human Rights. In addition to her role with the Food Ethics Council, she is currently Honorary Treasurer of Safe Passage International, trustee of Amnesty International Charity, and treasurer of her local string orchestra.
She has a life-long interest in food and holds a City and Guilds Diploma in Professional Cookery and an EMFEC Certificate in Pastry.
Tesni is Communications Officer for the Food Ethics Council. She is passionate about the connection between land, people and food, and is fascinated by the power of storytelling.
She has worked in environmental communications for three years, which has seen her engage with fishing communities in Northern Ireland to design a sustainable seafood trail for Seafish UK, as well as work closely with Defra on a multi-stakeholder project between fishermen, scientists and policymakers working to reduce wildlife bycatch in UK fisheries through knowledge-exchange and collaboration. She has written for several publications including The Ecologist.
Tesni holds a BA in Human Geography and is a keen social researcher. She also loves to get her hands in the soil and has spent time studying organic gardening, permaculture and herbal medicine. She currently lives in a land-based community in Devon where she is helping to set up an agroecological market garden and food forest.