The Crop Trust is a non-profit international organization dedicated to conserving crop diversity and making it available for use globally, forever, for the benefit of everyone.

We work with donors and partners to lead global projects that protect crop diversity, conserve crop wild relatives and develop technology to make this diversity accessible worldwide.

We seek professionals with a passion for global food security and a strong drive to contribute to our mission of conserving crop diversity for future generations.

Joanna Purcell

Partnerships Lead

Nationality: Irish
Language spoken: English, Italian, Spanish and German
Favourite Crop: Potato

Joanna Purcell represents partnerships at the Crop Trust, working with partners and donors to advance collective goals and ensuring the flow and care of funding and support towards safeguarding food security. Forever.

She brings over a decade of building partnerships in the food security space across global settings and sectors. With the United Nations World Food Programme, she headed partnerships for the Innovation Accelerator in Munich. She also worked at WFP’s headquarters in Rome, and served on years-long humanitarian and development missions designing strategies, liaising with donors and securing critical funding for WFP country offices in Egypt, Afghanistan, and Nepal.

Joanna has also worked with grassroots organizations in Peru, and before moving into international development, she worked as a teacher of adult learners and university students in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Ireland - experiences that sparked her deep curiosity about cross-cultural connection, lifelong learning, and collaboration.

She holds a BA in Political Science and Sociology and an MA in Language Teaching from the University of Limerick, as well as an MA in Management of Development from the University of Turin.