Arie van den Brand

Ir. Arie van den Brand (Oostvoorne, 22 February 1951) is a Dutch GreenLeft politician. He was member of the Tweede Kamer for the GreenLeft between May 2002 and March 2004.

Van den Brand studied agriculture science at the University of Wageningen. He continued to work at the People's Academy Bergen as director of the ILTC (the educational centre for the agricultural sector) and director of the foundation "In Natura". He was member of the Labour Party, but switched to the GreenLeft in 2000.

In the 2002 election Van den Brand was elected in the Tweede Kamer. He was spokesperson on agriculture, nature management, food safety, foreign trade, water management and tourism. After a heart attack he was inactive in parliament between December 2002 and September 2003. On March 10 2004 he left the parliament, on the advice of his doctors who held that such the function of MP was too heavy a burden on Van den Brand's health. As MP Van den Brand took a strong stance against violent animal liberation activism. He said that it was "abject that violent animal activism does not respect any notion of the rechtsstaat in a debate in the Tweede Kamer. In his view "violent forms of animal activism should be stopped with any means possible."

In 2007 Van den Brand was again candidate for parliament, now as for the Eerste Kamer. The GreenLeft party congress did however not place him on the place 2, 3 or 4 for which he was a candidate.

Currently Van den Brand is chair of the platform Biologica and he operates an organic orchard in Wogmeer.

Arie van den Brand