“If I were able to design and run a museum of natural history, it wouldn’t just be about history and how it was. It would highlight the lessons that we need to learn, the mistakes that we have made, the mistakes that we have made as political citizens, that we have allowed, the kind of damage we have allowed to see and happen. It would also be an agent of change that can reflect what the future can be.”
Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, is an internationally renowned expert on trade, development, human rights and agriculture issues. Recipient of several awards, Anuradha Mittal was named as the Most Valuable Thinker in 2008 by the Nation magazine.
Mittal has authored and edited numerous books and reports including (Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab; The Great Land Grab: Rush for World’s Farmland Threatens Food Security for the Poor; Voices from Africa: African Farmers and Environmentalists Speak out Against a New Green Revolution; 2008 Food Price Crisis: Rethinking Food Security Policies; Going Gray in the Golden State: The Reality of Poverty Among Seniors in Oakland, California; Turning the Tide: Challenging the Right on Campus; Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation; America Needs Human Rights; and The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance. Her articles and opinion pieces have been published in widely circulated newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Bangkok Post, Houston Chronicle, and the Nation. Anuradha has addressed the Congress, the United Nations, given several hundred keynote addresses including invitational events from governments and universities, and has been interviewed on CNN, BBC World, CBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera, National Public Radio and Voice of America.
Anuradha is on the board and advisory committees of several non profit organizations including the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), International Forum on Globalization, and is a member of the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s which focuses on providing leadership for Ben & Jerry’s social mission and brand integrity.