Agri-Energy Roundtable
[1] Undertaken as a conference project in mid-1979, the agri-energy concept evolved into an independent forum following a New Orleans meeting held February 7–9, 1980 which attracted business and government leaders from energy-surplus nations.
Determined to broaden AER's international profile, Hollis mobilized European contacts and began organizing a program in Switzerland with encouragement from US Senator Jennings Randolph and Dr. Armand Hammer.
[8] Later that year AER conducted meetings for advisory committees in Washington and Geneva- and hosted a one-day conference on agricultural training with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in December.
[12] The final conference was held at the Maui Intercontinental, with a keynote speech by Robert O. Anderson, chairman of Atlantic Richfield[13][14] and AER began attracting more corporate sponsors.
[15] Later, that spring Randolph and Anderson teamed up at the fourth AER (May 23–26) to spark another program success which included representatives from the People's Republic of China (PRC) The conference was reported in the London Observer newspaper.
After meetings and tours Hollis negotiated a memorandum of agreement[17] with Henan authorities (November 3) which resulted in an international AER mission and workshop series in China (March 16–24, 1984).
Years later the same issues pitting the US, Europe and the emerging nations would resurface to frustrate trade negotiations, leading to the collapse of the Doha Round (July 2008) In June AER attended the UN World Food Council ministerial meetings at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a non-governmental organization representing the private sector.
Shortly after retiring his Senate seat, Jennings Randolph assumed the chairmanship of AER and visited AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson to request program assistance to enable the Roundtable to develop its task force and subcommittee activities for more substantive focus in various agro-food processing, distribution, technology and finance sectors.
It is worth noting that AID was under pressure to terminate its ongoing support for a USDA backed group called the Joint Agricultural Consultative Committee (JACC) after internal reviews cited poor performance and other issues.
Senator Randolph introduced James Ingram, executive director of the World Food Programme and presided over a gathering which featured representations from nearly forty countries.
AER fielded a small delegation to represent private enterprise at the UN World Food Council ministerial conference in Paris (June 10–13) led by Gustavo de los Reyes.
AER continued its campaign for the private sector, self-help solutions in Africa- as contrasted with famine relief programs of Bob Geldof which captured the public imagination with video and musical appeals linked with the Ethiopian tragedy.
Nonetheless, in September 1985 AER hosted a Washington seminar on Africa and later Hollis revisited Nigeria where a workshop was conducted in Lagos aimed at mobilizing broader support for a West African regional conference.
Texaco’s director on the AER board, Jean Poupeau- had pioneered a cassava farm demonstrating how a multinational oil company could contribute directly to a nation’s food security- by using its gas station network to distribute basic foodstuffs.
This program at the Madison Hotel was accomplished so successfully that Agriculture Minister Ramon Mitra invited AER staff to visit Manila and organize an ASEAN wide conference featuring Philippine agro-industry investment potentials.
Other country groups at the IAF were provided “starter kits” for association building and two new vice chairmen from Canada and the Gambia assisted Senator Randolph in conducting the conference.
In March AER partnered with a new sponsor, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Office of Biomass and launched a special Subcommittee on Renewable Energy Technology.
The two-day event at the Mayflower Hotel was chaired by John Shields of the TVA and included representatives of two dozen leading companies interested in renewable energy from solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and others primarily in relation to agriculture.
In mid August AER met in London to finalize plans for the Gulf regional conference in UAE and to conduct meetings with the London-based non-conventional finance subgroup.
In October AER combined with ABC to host a conference in St. Louis on the effects of the great North American drought on U.S. agricultural reliability and the transportation system.
In July Hollis resumed travels to New Delhi, conducting a workshop at the Oberoi Hotel with Indian business leaders, including Lala Bansidhar of DCM, S.K.
A key element was the potential USAID use of local currencies generated from the sale of US commodities under the Food for Peace program (described in a White House encouragement cable on November 3, 1987- see UNCLAS State 342248) Growing AER recognition with international donor agencies was signaled with an invitation to UNDP’s African Leadership Forum at General Obasanjo’s farm in Ota, Nigeria.
[44] AER’s Tenth Annual International Agriculture Form (October 8–11) in Vienna, Austria opened new doors for program expansion to Eastern Europe with strong delegations from Poland and Hungary.
Following the Vienna meetings, AER senior director Gustavo de los Reyes led a 14-member delegation to Budapest, Hungary for two days of talks and field visits hosted by the Hungarian Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
[47] Despite AER's successes on the international front, leadership transition issues and interference directed at its US affiliate- the Agribusiness Council (ABC)- traced to rival domestic agricultural interests- created sufficient doubt to enable opponents in AID to terminate a number of key grant contracts in mid-1992 (after reinstating ABC/AER following some initial confusion in early 1990).
The most dramatic breakthrough project occurred in late 1994 in Poland, where Hollis and an ABC team traveled and campaigned around the country in some fifteen towns and cities[61] which led to a formation conference for the Polish Agribusiness Association in March 1995 at the Forum Hotel in Warsaw.
For its part, USDA coordinated an aggressive effort –both from Washington and Warsaw, to undercut the Polish program, and later utilized the threat of withholding agricultural support services to the US Embassy in Vilnius in a separate campaign to suffocate interest in an initiative aimed at forming an agribusiness association in Lithuania (2002).
[63][64][65] USG agencies, including USAID, USDA and the Department of State, also continued to request ABC proposals for planned agribusiness association development, formatted around the AER model, particularly in Indonesia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and Bulgaria, but these government initiatives were not sustained.
