Jul 5, 2022World Potato Congress welcomes new international advisors
World Potato Congress Inc. is very pleased to introduce five new international advisors to the organization making it truly representative of all regions of the world.
Martin Acosta
Martin Acosta is the founder and CEO of KIWA, which exports premium snacks to 30
countries. KIWA was selected as Best Small-Sized (2011) and Best Medium-Sized Company in Ecuador (2017) and Top 10 Social Enterprise in LatAm by i3latam.com, in a program financed by Ashoka and Swiss Development Cooperation (2014), and he was named Social Entrepreneur of the year by Social Venture Network (2015).
Martin previously worked in private equity for Aureos and as an advisor for USAID, SNV & WBCSD, UN World Food Programme & TNT, and several SMEs. Since 2001, he has also worked as an investments advisor for wealthy families and holds a diploma from Wharton School in private wealth management.
Martin holds an MBA from INSEAD, an MSc in politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics, and a BA from Kalamazoo College, magna cum laude.
Julio Kalazich
Julio Kalazich was born in Porvenir, Province of Tierra del Fuego Island, Region of Magellan, Chile.
He is currently an academic professor at the Universidad de Los Lagos, Osorno, Chile, and an international consultant in potato and general agricultural matters with more than 40 years of experience in the public sector in research, academy
and administration.
He is an agronomist engineer from Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile (1977) and earned his Ph.D. in plant breeding and biometry at Cornell University, New York, USA in 1989. He worked as potato breeder at the Agricultural Research Institute (INIA for its Spanish acronym), Ministry of Agriculture, Chile, between 1977 and 2018, being its program leader since 1979, and in 2019 joined Universidad de Los Lagos.
During his extensive career, he headed the development and release of 13 potato varieties, some of which are the top five in the country, including number one as of 2018, totaling 50% of total sales at wholesale Chilean markets. He served as vice president of the Latin American Potato Association (ALAP) and member of International Boards in South America, US and Europe. In 2014-2018, he was INIA’s national director. During that period, he was also president of PROCISUR and vice president of FONTAGRO.
Ghislain Pelletier
Ghislain Pelletier was born in Grand Falls, New Brunswick (NB), Canada. He was raised on a multi-generational potato farm in Drummond, in the heart of the Potato Belt in Northwest N.B. With his brother, he grew 4 hectares of potatoes within his father’s farm when he was still in high school. His passion for the potato crop as a means to create socio-economic well-being made him pursue a degree in soil and plant science.
As a young professional agrologist, he worked for the NB Department of Agriculture as a potato production specialist, advising and supporting potato farmers on potato production matters and new technology transfer. Realizing soon that there was a lot to be learned in other parts of the world, he joined McCain Foods as an international potato agronomist with a one-year assignment in the USA Pacific Northwest, followed by a 4-year assignment in Argentina as a senior agronomist to evaluate and develop the sourcing of quality potatoes for the production of French fries.
Once the factory in Balcarce was up and running, he returned to New Brunswick. From the Florenceville, N.B. base, he led potato supply feasibility studies to support investments in French fry processing factories for India, China, Colombia and Brazil.
He was appointed vice president, agriculture, for McCain Foods in 2003 with responsibility for the development of the McCain Global Potato Supply and R&D Strategy, including the evaluation and development of potato supplies in emerging markets.
Ghislain served on the Board of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform for over 10 years and served as its president for one 2-year term. He was World Potato Congress (WPC) director from August 2006 until June 30, 2021.
Although Ghislain retired from McCain Foods after 30 years of service, he now provides international potato agro-consultation services.
Blair Richardson
Blair Richardson has fulfilled the responsibilities as CEO and president of Potatoes USA for the past eight years. On behalf of Potatoes USA and the potato industry, Blair sits on several produce and potato industry boards, including the Alliance for Potato Research and Education, the Potato Leadership, Education, and Advancement Foundation, the Alliance for Food and Farming, and others.
Mr. Richardson actively engages in issues of importance to the potato industry and is passionate about the need to proactively protect and defend the reputation of the potato. He is a strong proponent of aggressive advocacy and marketing tactics.
Prior to this, Blair served in similar positions with other private and industry organizations in California and has been an active farmer of both almonds and cherries while he was CEO/partner of a large grower/packer/sales company specializing in fresh stone fruit, grapes, and citrus.
Mr. Richardson sold his last farm in California in 2021, which capped 32 years of working and/or farming in the state that began in 1989 with a ten-year career in the California cotton industry.
Santosh Kumar Tiwari
Santosh Kumar Tiwari holds a PhD in plant breeding Y genetics and presently leads a highly qualified team of seven DR’s and 150 contractual of potato mini-tuber production at the aeroponic facility and technical program of PepsiCo. Since June 2019, Tiwari has been the associate director of agro research and development, PepsiCo India, where he has commercialized six PepsiCo Frito Lay varieties for chip grade production at PAN India level, introduced 29 potato clones of processing grade from Rheinlander USA to PepsiCo India, and registered six PepsiCo potato varieties under “PPV & FRA” GOI, New Delhi.
He also developed new seed and chip grade potato production geographies in Assam, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Karnataka. He developed innovative solutions and capability development in high-tech potato long storage greater than 9 months, a breakthrough solution to manage reducing sugars in processing potatoes, and provided technical support in establishing sustainable farming initiative in association with a global team and leading ag companies in India.
