Thomas Tomich Email & Phone Number

San Francisco, Ca, Us

San Francisco Bay Area

ASI provides a hub that links initiatives in research and education in sustainable agriculture and food systems across the University of California (UC) and other partners throughout California and across the United States. Partnering with practitioners, community organizations, UC Cooperative Extension and other NGOs has helped ensure the work ASI is doing is linked to real need and that results are put into practice. Major achievements so far include the launch of ASI; creation of a distinguished advisory board and innovative mechanisms for consultation and engagement with a broad and very complex set of external stakeholders; successful restructuring and integration of the SAREP statewide program within ASI; scientific rejuvenation of the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility, a unique 300 acre (120 ha) facility for long-term research on agricultural sustainability that is part of ASI; expanding programs at the Student Farm at ASI, a 25 acre (10 ha) teaching facility and incubator for student initiatives; and successful completion of a cluster hire of nine new faculty members. These developments have enabled significant increases in funding for a range of integrated, multi-disciplinary research, education, communication, and outreach initiatives, including the California Nitrogen Assessment, an interdisciplinary initiative to assess the tradeoffs involved in agricultural nitrogen management in California agroecosystems, and ASI’s first international project on sustainable sourcing of global agricultural raw materials. I also host the Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agriculture and Sustainability (INFAS), a national network of more than two dozen directors of sustainability centers and endowed chairs from 25 land grant universities and other institutions across the United States.

The Independent Science and Partnership Council's primary mission is to enhance quality, relevance and impact of CGIAR science; advise the Fund Council on strategic scientific issues of importance to CGIAR goals; and help the CGIAR harness the most valuable partnerships from the international research and development community.

Nairobi, Kenya

ASB (www.asb.cgiar.org) is a systemwide programme of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), with a total programme budget averaging more than USD 6 million per year. The programme works through long-term collaborative partnerships in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia to raise productivity and income of rural households without increasing deforestation or undermining essential environmental services. ASB is recognized as a global leader in integrated natural resource management through engagement with local communities, national and international partners, and policymakers, for its success in producing scientific outputs (e.g., over 780 publications), and for impact through innovative policies and practices. ASB won the CGIAR Science Award for “Outstanding Partnership” in 2005.

Leader of 15+ person inter-disciplinary team of national and international researchers working on natural resource policy in SE Asia, including measurement of environmental, social, and economic impact of land use change and deforestation; incidence and underlying social causes of land fires and the use of fire as both tool and weapon; evolution of customary land and tree tenure institutions; options for implementation of community-based resource management; effects of trade and marketing restrictions on smallholders’ income from timber and non-timber tree products; and broader forces driving land use change and forest conversion. Project Leader, USD 1.2 million Asian Development Bank Regional Technical Assistance Grant, “Policy Research for Sustainable Upland Systems” (1997-2000) and various Ford Foundation grants for policy research on community-based forest management (1995-99). My team provided research support and advice leading to a policy breakthrough that has become a prototype for expansion of community-based forest management in Indonesia. Active in collaborative work to develop replicable methods and to integrate results from research on land use change and deforestation in SE Asia with parallel research activities in the Congo Basin and the Western Amazon as part of the global Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Systemwide Programme. Administrative responsibilities including fund raising, budgeting, project management and reporting, personnel management, representing the program in various fora, and a share of regional coordination.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Research, teaching, project leadership, policy analysis, and advising on smallholder-based development strategy, agrarian reform, technological change, sustainable agricultural development, treecrops, farming systems, food and input price policy, trade policy, political economy of deregulation and reform, intrahousehold distribution and gender.

Cambridge, Massacusetts

Jakarta, Indonesia

Principal investigator for research on impact of national policies, programs, and projects on development of smallholders' tree crops. Led policy research on deregulation of agricultural exports, which supported deregulation of ten major export commodities; fertilizer price policy reform that saves USD 150 million per year in public funds; and other aspects of agricultural policy. Extensive fieldwork throughout Indonesia. Built an agricultural policy analysis unit comprising ten Indonesian research staff and several regular consultants, which produced over 70 policy studies and memoranda in three years. Managed this multi-million dollar project, including finances and human resources.

Cambridge, Masschusetts

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Food Research (Agricultural Economics)

PhD, 1984, Food Research Institute, Stanford University (with distinction). Dissertation: Private Land Reclamation in Egypt: Studies.

Bachelor'S Degree, Economics

BA, 1979, Economics, University of California, Davis (with highest honors). Honors thesis: Agricultural Development in Egypt. Departmental.

Non-Degree, Junior Year Abroad

University of California Education Abroad Program