47th Annual Conference and
Future Leaders Forum

June 5-8, 2011

"Building the Capacity to Transform the Food Security Landscape"

Speakers and Panelists

Gary Groves, Office of Capacity Building and Development, USDA

Gary Groves is currently an Assistant Deputy Administrator for the Office of Capacity Building and Development in the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. In this role, he oversees technical assistance, agricultural development, and trade capacity building programs aimed at transforming targeted countries into viable trading partners for U.S. agriculture. Immediately prior to this assignment, Mr. Groves was the Agricultural Minister-Counselor of the United States Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, a position he occupied from 2002 until 2007. Mr. Groves attended The Ohio State University from 1971 to 1976, receiving a Bachelor?s and a Master?s Degree in agricultural economics. He joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in August 1976, as an agricultural economist with the Dairy, Livestock, and Poultry Division.

He served as Agricultural Attache in Ottawa, Canada from 1979 to 1983, as Agricultural Attache in Lima, Peru from 1987 to 1990, and as Agricultural Counselor in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1995 to 1999. He also has had various assignments with the Foreign Agricultural Service in Washington, mostly in the area of managing the agency's agricultural marketing and trade promotion programs in foreign countries.