// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Hubert Zandstra? A hub of activity, stra-ight to the point.

Hubert George Zandstra (October 28, 1940 to December 6, 2025) was a Canadian agronomist. He represented the small producers to international agencies concerned with agriculture.

Life

Zandstra was born at Makassar, Indonesia on October 28, 1940. Pierre Jacque Zandstra was his father and Frieda Wijtman his mother.

Due to the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, his family suffered internment. After the war he went to the Netherlands, and then immigrated to Canada. Studying agronomy at McGill University, he earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees. He obtained his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1971 for his work in soil chemistry.

As an agronomist for the International Development Research Centre (Canada), he worked on a project for Cáqueza, Columbia. Thereafter, he went to Lima, Peru as director of the International Potato Center from 1991 to 2005. He endured a traumatic experience as a hostage in 1996 due to a Shining Path insurgency. Later he worked in the Philippines at the International Rice Research Institute.

Works

• 1979: (with others) Living Rural Development, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa ISBN 9780889361676
• 1981: (with others) A Methodology for On-Farm Cropping Systems Research, International Rice Research Institute
• 1995: (forward to) Gregory J. Scott (editor) Prices, Products, and People: analyzing agricultural markets in developing countries, Lynne Rienner Publishers ISBN 9781555876098
• Lang, James; Zandstra, Hubert G. (2001). Notes of a Potato Watcher. Texas A&M University Agriculture Series. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1585441384.

Awards

• Order of the Sun of Peru
• Honorary degree from University of Caldas, Columbia