Biography
Boudewijn (Bo) van Elzakker (1956)
Bo is the director of the Agro Eco – Louis Bolk Institute (www.agroeco.net) which is an independent advisory- research-development organisation currently active mainly in West Africa.
He is trained as a tropical agronomist. He has 30+ years’ experience in organic agriculture in all aspects: primary production, producer organisation, access to inputs, value chain development, conversion & business planning, marketing, and ensuring organic integrity.
He has assisted in the development of close to 100 organic product value chains first in South and Eastern Europe, then Asia and Latin America and since 1995 mainly in Africa, involving groups of hundreds of smallholder farmers.
His organisation also supports farmer groups for Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance certification and works with commodity traders’ own sustainability schemes involving thousands of smallholders. The intent is to move to a landscape approach.