David Andrews, Covenant Agency

David Andrews, Des Moines Iowa

"Professionally, he serves as the Executive Director of the 82-year-old National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) based in Des Moines, Iowa, an organization that is a lead voice for the Catholic Church on food, farm, farm worker, and environmental concerns in the United States. The NCRLC ministers through outreach, advocacy, spirituality, and education and has close and historic ties to Heifer Project International.

"Brother Dave serves in a number of leadership positions, assisting as a consultant with the Domestic Policy Committee of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops and as a member of the governor of Iowa’s Food Policy Council, and currently serves as a member and as the Director of the Office of Peace and Justice for the Congregation of Holy Cross, an international religious order of men which serves in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America. Brother Dave has been an accredited NGO representative at the Seattle and the Cancun WTO meetings, the World Food Summit in Rome, and the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development. He has served on Boards ranging from the Organization for Competitive Markets, the Community Food Security Coalition, and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture to the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

"In honor of his 25 plus years as an active advocate for a just food and farm system, Brother Dave recently received the “Excellence in Practice and Application Award” from the Rural Sociological Society. Presented in August 2005, this was the first award of its kind.

"Brother Dave received a law degree from Loyola University in New Orleans and enjoys travel, having visited Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Canada studying agriculture, trade and development issues."


 * Director, Heifer International