Global Panel

Howard-Yana Shapiro

Howard-Yana Shapiro has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 40 years. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, governmental agencies and the private sector around the world. Howard authored the IAASTD chapter on Biotechnology and Biodiversity, co-chair of the 1st and 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry and is Chairperson of the External Advisory Board of the Agriculture Sustainability Institute at UC Davis. In 2009 he was named recipient of The Award of Distinction from The College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis. He led the global effort sequencing, assembling and annotating the Theobroma cacao genome and leads the African Orphan Crops Consortium (sequencing, assembling and annotating 96 plant genomes for nutritional improvement). Howard has served as Chief Agricultural Officer for Mars, Incorporated since 2008 and is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Plant Sciences, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis.