Barbara Gemmill Herren

Barbara Gemmill-Herren will be developing and teaching a new course in the Master of Science in Sustainable Food Systems Program on Food Systems Biodiversity: Ecosystem Services.

Her passions in life come from an overwhelming love of nature, from bees to trees, with bears and elephants included.  She believes that when people can connect with nature, there is a sharing of knowledge that goes well beyond the traditional dichotomies of the natural world versus humanity.  In every community where she has worked, she has always found extraordinary – and innovative -  individuals who innately understand this.

She brings decades of work on-the-ground with local communities and ecosystems in Africa and around the world, paired with many years of finding a space - in the intergovernmental process - for biodiversity, diverse farming systems, and agroecology.

She is an ecologist specializing in agroecology and pollination services, and has coordinated research on pollination, ecological intensification, family farming and agroecology.  In her recent work she has been focused on how the voice and knowledge of farmers – often relegated to anecdotes and case studies – can be fundamental to research and policy on food systems and agriculture.

She is currently serving as a senior advisor to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Mainstreaming Biodiversity Across All Agricultural Sectors, is a Senior Associate at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, Kenya and is on the steering committee of a True Cost Accounting Accelerator initiative of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.  She has been on the project team of the Committee on World Food Security’s High-Level Panel of Experts, producing the 2019 report, “Agroecological and other innovation approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition.” Previously she was Delivery Manager, for the Major Area of Work on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity at FAO. Prior to her 11 years on the staff of the UN, she was Executive Director of Environment Liaison Centre International, an international environmental non-governmental organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. Within FAO, she built and coordinated a global project on Pollination Services, implemented in Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Nepal.  In her last five years at FAO she was responsible for FAO’s work on Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Production and was central to FAO’s new focus on Agroecology. More recently, she has been a contributor to the UN initiative on “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food” – exploring True Cost Accounting in Agriculture – and has led the “Beacons of Hope” initiative of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.  This initiative seeks to develop a framework bringing together evidence and stories of transitions towards more sustainable food and agriculture systems. 

After twenty-five years living in Africa (Nigeria, Benin and Kenya) and eleven in Rome, Italy, she now lives on a small farm in Capay Valley, California, with her husband, twenty sheep and one cat.