Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER)

Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER) is a nonprofit and non-governmental organization accredited by the United Nations and established in 1980 as a forum for encouraging dialogue on cooperative energy and agricultural development between industrialized and developing nations. AER conducts international conferences, regional seminars and workshops, trade missions and technical assistance for the formation of autonomous indigenous counterpart associations.

Undertaken as a conference project in mid-1979, the agri-energy concept evolved into an independent forum following a New Orleans meeting held February 7–9, 1980 which attracted business and government leaders from energy-surplus nations. The first conference benefited from the Carter Administration’s Soviet grain embargo - announced weeks earlier - which created unprecedented congestion at the Port of New Orleans. Undersecretary of Agriculture Dale E. Hathaway keynoted the event which attracted major agricultural interest, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, as well as media exposure nationally. Among the corporate sponsors was the chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation- Dr. Armand Hammer.

AER was formally incorporated in March 1980 by Nicholas Everett Hollis as a non-profit association. Hollis had conceived organized and conducted the New Orleans conference. and recognized the potential for a forum. Later, AER produced a publication entitled “The Agri-Energy Roundtable 1980- U.S. Agribusiness and the Energy-Rich Nations: Partners for Agricultural Development in the ‘80s”. The document featured themes of trilateral development Hollis had championed while in the State Department as well as a compilation of papers presented at the conference Hollis also used contacts in the Mid-East to advance the AER and helped organize an Egyptian agricultural conference in Alexandria in July.

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