GEOFF TANSEY

WRITER AND CONSULTANT

Speaking at a side event during negotiations on animal genetic resources at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, June 2007

 

E-mail: geoff.tansey@jrct.org.uk

Articles

As a writer, I have specialised on food, agriculture and development issues, but also written on Turkey, on science and technology, on computing and on education during my career. My features have appeared in many magazines including Farmers Weekly, Financial Times, The Food Magazine, Food Policy, Gemini News Service, The Guardian, Ideas and Action, International Agricultural Development, Overseas Development, Poultry International, Pig International, New Internationalist, and The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Syndicated features have also appeared in various countries around the world including Argentina, Botswana, Kenya, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Zambia.

During the 1980s and 1990s, as a broadcaster I also contributed to various BBC World Service programmes including "The Farming World", and to BBC Radio 4's "Farming Today" and "The Food Programme".

Monographs

TRIPS with everything? Intellectual property and the farming world, Food Ethics Council, Southwell, UK, November 2002.

Food Security, Biotechnology and Intellectual Property – Unpacking some issues around TRIPS, Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva, July 2002.

Trade, Intellectual Property, Food and Biodiversity: Key issues and options for the 1999 review of Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement, Quaker Peace & Service, London, Feb 1999 – also translated into French, German and Spanish.

Food and Nutrition: Creating a well-fed world, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Food Day Booklet, 1992, 5 language editions.

Real Security: East, West, North and South, World Development Movement, Occasional Paper 2, London, July 1990.

The Turkish Wheat Research and Training Project, 1969-1982, The Rockefeller Foundation, New York, Sep 1984.

The Development of Agricultural Extension in the Aegean Region of Turkey, Overseas Development Institute, Agricultural Administration Network, Paper 18, jointly written with Anthony Fitzherbert, London, Sep 1984.

On-farm research for optimising potato productivity, edited with B.L. Honess, The International Potato Centre, Izmir, Turkey, 1981.

Potato genetic resources and their potential for the Mediterranean region, edited with B.L. Honess and P. Malagamba, The International Potato Centre, Izmir, Turkey, 1980.

Selected Papers

Legal fictions, biological realities – shaping our food future, Environmental Law Review, Vol 9, Issue 3, 2007, pp167-170

Just negotiations? PropEur Newsletter, Vol 2, Spring 2006, p2

“Comment: Whose rules, whose needs? Balancing Public and Private Interests” in Keith E Maskus and Jerome H Reichman, eds, International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology under a Globalised Intellectual Property Regime, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp662-668

“The Role and Perspectives of “Non-Traditional” Providers of IPR Technical Assistance” in final report of workshop Reflection on IPR Technical Assistance for Developing Countries and Transition Economies, Burnham Beeches, 15-17 September 2004

“Food, power, intellectual property and traditional knowledge – a food system overview”, in UNCTAD, Protecting and Promoting Traditional Knowledge: Systems, National Experiences and International Dimensions, Geneva, 2004

“Balancing interests” in World Food Day 2004 - Biodiversity for Food Security, Proceedings of symposium on Food Security and Biodiversity in Basel, October 2003, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture,October 2004, pp 26-33 (available at www.benefitsharing.org)

“Food and poverty: current global challenges?”, with Elizabeth Dowler, in Mosley, P & Dowler, E (eds) Poverty and Social Exclusion in North and South, Routledge, 2004

“Global Intellectual Property Rights: A New Factor in Farming” in Agriculture and the WTO, World Bank, Washington DC, 2003

“Agricultural R&D” in Millstone, E & Lang, T (eds) The Atlas of Food: Who eats what, where and why, Earthscan, London, 2003

“Patenting Our Food Future: Intellectual Property Rights and the Global Food System”, Social Policy and Administration, vol 36, no 6, December 2002, Special Issue: Food, pp 575-592; also published as a book - Elizabeth Dowler and Catherine Jones Fines (eds) The Welfare of Food: rights and responsibilities in a changing world, Blackwell, Oxford, 2003

“Technology, power, marginalisation and food insecurity: some issues in intellectual property” in Sustainable Agriculture in the New Millennium – The impact of biotechnology on developing countries, Brussels 28-31 May 2002, Conference Proceedings, eds K Plenderleith and P De Meyer, FOE Europe, 2002

"Food Security: a food system overview", in The Geneva Documents - Proceedings of the workshops on TRIPS, CBD, and International Undertaking, June 2000, Instituto Agronomico Oltremare, 2002, available on-line at http://biodiv.iao.florence.it/proceedings

"Food for Thought - Intellectual Property Rights, Food and Biodiversity", Harvard International Review, Spring 2002, vol XXIV, no 1. pp 54-59

"Beyond science to society: biotechnology, trade, intellectual property and food security" in Science and Technology in the Commonwealth: Paths to Prosperity, Kennington Publications/Commonwealth Secretariat, 1999

"Food policy in a changing food system", British Food Journal, Vol 96, No 8, pp 4-12, 1994

"Not just an old oil drum!", report on extension information work with a Turkish livestock project, World Animal Review, Vol 80/81, No 3-4, pp 89-91, 1994

"From words to action", commentary on the International Conference on Nutrition, Ecology of Food and Nutrition, Vol 32, pp 45-50, 1994

"Battle of the bulge", Food Policy, October 1992, pp 388-391

"Fighting for control of biotechnology", Food Policy, December 1991, pp 492-494