Bart Soldaat “With 70% of the world population living in urban areas by 2050, cities will play a key role in finding solutions to feed its inhabitants in a sustainable way. Eating City is showcasing how this can be achieved.”
Bart Soldaat has been trained as a rural sociologist at the Agricultural University of Wageningen, Holland. After completion of its Masters, he has done research in Italy for the Italian Ministry of Agriculture in 1990 on the subject of beef quality of indigenous breeds. Then he worked for a Dutch regional farmers union in various capacities for eleven years involved in various projects on Sustainable and Multifunctional Agriculture. In April 2002, he started his own consultancy.
Since 2002 he has been engaged in the LEADER programme, which is part of the European Rural Development Policy, as coordinator of various LEADER Local Action Groups. Since November 2004, he is also secretary of the Groupe de Bruges, an independent think tank on European Agricultural and Rural Development Policy (www.groupedebruges.eu).