Gunnar Rundgren

Gunnar Rundgren has worked with most parts of the organic agriculture sector from farming to policy since 1977, starting on the pioneer organic farm, Torfolk. He is the founder and a senior consultant of Grolink (www.grolink.se), a consultancy company engaged in certification development, policy development, project development, marketing strategies and international training programmes - mainly targeting developing countries. He has been engaged as a consultant by NGOs, governments, private companies and intergovernmental organisations such as OECD, UNCTAD, UNEP, the World Bank and the FAO.

Rundgren is the initiator of several organisations for organic agriculture in Sweden, including its main eco-label KRAV (www.krav.se) where he was the director for the first eight years. He served as the first President of the Accreditation Programme Board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) 1992-1997. He became an IFOAM World Board member in 1998 and the IFOAM President during the period 2000-2005. In 2002 he was a founding board member of the ISEAL Alliance.

He has published several books and reports related to organic farming. In 2010, he published a book about the major social and environmental challenges of our world: Garden Earth: From hunter and gatherer to global capitalism and thereafter. He also co-authored the book Jorden vi Äter, published in 2012, about the challenge of feeding the world's population in a sustainable way. His books have been translated to several languages.

Rundgren was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science at the Uganda Martyrs University 2009. The same year, he was appointed a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.