Alliance for Organic Integrity – Strengthening organic assurance globally
Current Board
Francis Blake, President Emeritus, has a BSc (Hons) in Agricultural and Forest Sciences (MA). After farming organically for 10 years, and publishing a book, ‘Organic farming and growing – a guide to management’, he joined the Soil Association (www.soilassociation.org) and had leading roles in its certification and standards for over 30 years. During this time he was instrumental in developing common international organic standards for textiles (www.global-standard.org) and cosmetics (www.cosmos-standard.org), working with partner organizations. He was also founding president of the IFOAM EU Group (www.ifoam-eu.org). He is currently a semi-retired, occasional consultant and is also on the board of IOAS.
Bo Van Elzakker, Secretary/Director, is director of the Agro Eco – Louis Bolk Institute, an independent advisory research development organization active mainly in West Africa. He has more than 30 years of experience in all aspects of organic agriculture: primary production, producer organization, access to inputs, value chain development, conversion & business planning, marketing, and ensuring organic integrity. He is chairman of the Accreditation Committee of ASI which is accrediting certification bodies to a variety of voluntary standards like MSC, FSC, ASC and RSPO. He is one of the initiators of the Anti-Fraud Initiative, learning from past fraud cases, organizing multi-stakeholder workshops to improve the integrity of organic certification, and doing due diligence audits of certification bodies and for organic buyers.
Professor Gabriela Soto, Interim President/Director, is an agronomist with an MSc. in Soil Ecology (University of Virginia, USA). She has dedicated her professional life to the development of the organic sector in Costa Rica and internationally, as former president of the Organic Farmers Association (ANAO), and President and Director of ANAO’s Certification Agency EcoLOGICA, certifying organic producers in Costa Rica and abroad for 22 years. Gabriela is also a researcher and professor at the University of Costa Rica where she teaches Agroecology. She is on the Board of the National Organic Movement (MAOCO), and represents the Certification Agencies in the National Commission in her country. She is also a Board Member of TIPI and IFOAM Ambassador.
Nuria Alonso, TOS Commissioning Editor, has been TOS editor for many years, almost from the beginning of TOS in 2000. She has gone through every stage of TOS! Nuria has balanced this work with various certification, inspection, education, and outreach tasks, all related to organic production.
Please, contact Nuria if you have news or ideas you would like to see published in TOS
Dr David Crucefix, President/Treasurer, had an early career working in development aid mostly in the Caribbean and Africa and later started working in the organic sector as inspector and later in certification. In 2000 he joined IOAS as Assistant Executive Director performing many accreditation assessments of organic certifiers around the world as well as developing training courses for CBs and oversight bodies. He wrote some of the key documents contributing to the IFOAM/FAO/UNCTAD Harmonization conferences during the 1990s. In 2011 he became Executive Director of IOAS and remained in that position until December 2024. He continued to work with IOAS in business development until June 2026. Apart from occasional projects in the organic and sustainability sector he now spends most of his time in his garden in the UK.
Non Board Members
Robin Fransella, Organic Observatory Programme Manager, spent 14 years in the Organic Team at the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and was policy lead on organic in international fora. His educational background is legal and he is a Master of Public International Law (Environmental Law specialisation). Robin helped establish the EU Informal Working Group on Organic Imports and oversaw creation of the UK’s organic import database.