Mark Ritchie
Key Player

President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Chair, International Forum on Food and Agriculture (a project of the Int’l Forum on Globalization); Former Exec. Director, Center for Rural Studies; Former VP, Organic Buyers and Growers AssociationSelling “fair-trade” coffee (and the “sustainable agriculture” rhetoric that promotes the product), Mark Ritchie runs the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy from the same building where he operates Peace Coffee. The latter, a for-profit company operating out of IATP’s nonprofit offices, sells “fair trade, organic, shade-grown coffees” for $9.50 per pound.

Ritchie has a lengthy resume that includes the executive directorship of the Center for Rural Studies, a fee-per-service office at the University of Vermont that provides advocacy research to activist agriculture nonprofits. He is also a past president of the Organic Buyers and Growers Association. He has chaired the International Forum on Food and Agriculture (a project of Jerry Mander’s International Forum on Globalization) and the board of Sustainable America. Ritchie also served on the U.S. Trade Representative’s Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee.