Carin Smaller

Carin Smaller is Executive Director of the Shamba Centre for Food & Climate. She has over fifteen years’ experience advising governments, donors, and parliamentarians, on public and private investment and trade in agriculture and food systems. She was co-Director and co-author of Ceres2030: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger, a three-year research project combining artificial intelligence and economic modelling to find the most effective ways and costs to end hunger, double farmer incomes and protect the climate. She was also author of the IISD Guide to Negotiating Investment Contracts for Farmland and Water, the first attempt to create a model contract for developing countries to attract foreign investment for agriculture, while at the same time, promoting the needs of the poor and protecting the environment. She has lived and worked in several developing countries, including Tanzania, India, Namibia and Nepal. She has advised dozens of government officials in low and middle-income countries on how to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks from public and private investment, and trade in food and agriculture. Prior to this role she was Director of Agriculture, Trade, and Investment at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Political Science from the University of New South Wales, Australia.