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Indian American joins top rung of US food industry association

Former senior Clinton administration appointee Isi Siddiqui has been named senior director of biotechnology and trade for the American Crop Protection Association, a premier food industry group.

He will join the staff starting Friday, June 1.

A graduate of science from the Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University in India, and a master's degree and a doctorate from the University of Illinois, Siddiqui will support ACPA's biotechnology programmes and supplement staff expertise.

His brief includes devoting considerable time on government agency and congressional outreach.

The association said it would capitalize on Siddiqui's expertise in international trade, including relationships with the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.

"Through ACPA's global federation in Brussels, Siddiqui will provide new leadership to the industry's long-term strategy to reduce and eliminate tariff burdens," the ACPA said.

"Siddiqui's vast knowledge as a former state regulator will be a bonus to ACPA's state affairs programme."

He joins ACPA from the US department of agriculture, where he served as undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programmes responsible for agricultural marketing, animal and plant health, grain inspection and market concentration issues in the final days of the Clinton administration. His assignments were the publication of several high-priority final rules, and agricultural biotechnology and international trade.

Previously, he served as senior trade adviser to USDA Secretary Dan Glickman, focusing on international trade and agricultural biotechnology; and the USDA deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programmes.

Before joining the USDA, Siddiqui spent 28 years in various positions with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, ending his career there as director of the division of plant industry.

As director of the division, he was responsible for the plant pest prevention programmes in California. He worked closely with the USDA's foreign agricultural service and the animal and plant health inspection service in resolving agricultural export problems with China, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, and European Union countries.

From 1981-84, Siddiqui was chief of emergency and special projects, at CDFA, where he was responsible for pest eradication projects involving the Mediterranean fruit fly, the Mexican fruit fly and the gypsy moth. He worked as a programme supervisor in the division's control and eradication unit from 1976-81, after having served as liaison officer for technical communications from 1974-76.

Siddiqui began his career with the division of plant industry in 1969 as a nematologist.

Organized in 1933, the ACPA is a non-profit trade organization representing major manufacturers, formulators and distributors of crop protection, pest control and biotechnology products. ACPA member companies produce, sell and distribute virtually all scientific technology products used in crop production by American farmers.

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