Edgard Pisani

Edgard Edouard Pisani was a French statesman who, as Minister of Agriculture under President Charles de Gaulle from 1961 to 1966, authored the framework laws that modernized French farming during the Fifth Republic's formative years, encouraging land consolidation, agricultural cooperatives and the training of a technically educated new generation of farmers. Born in Tunis in 1918 to French parents of Maltese origin, he later served as European Commissioner for Development from 1981 to 1985 and briefly as High Commissioner of New Caledonia in 1985, before becoming President of the Arab World Institute from 1988 to 1995. He remained engaged with agricultural policy long after leaving ministerial office, co-founding two agricultural and rural policy groups, the Groupe de Seillac in 1992 and the Groupe de Bruges in 1995, and writing on global food security and agricultural markets until his death in 2016 at the age of 97.