W.K Kellogg Foundation FOOD AND SOCIETY NETWORKING CONFERENCE April 23-25, 2003 The Woodlands Conference Center Houston, TX
“What Would It Take?”
A discussion of how we might together create a food system that fosters healthy communities, people, and ecosystems
At the Food and Society Networking Conference participants will examine existing food systems from several points of view with an eye towards discovering what it would take to create the conditions for a widespread shift toward a food system supportive of healthy communities, people, and ecosystems. We intend to create a “space of inquiry” where participants and presenters can share their opinions as well as hear other perspectives that affect their day-to-day situations.
Tuesday April 22, 2003 4 – 6 p.m. Registration Grand Ballroom Foyer
Day One: Wednesday April 23, 2003 All Plenary Sessions and Openings in Grand Ballroom
7:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast In front of Grand Ballroom
8:30 a.m. Opening Sue Miller Hurst
9:30 a.m. Welcome from W.K. Kellogg Foundation Rick Foster, Vice President for Programs, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
10 a.m. Break
10:30 a.m. PLENARY SESSION I Drivers and Perspectives of the Food System “Production agriculture” and/or the “industrial" food industries are frequently criticized for externalizing their costs. Food companies are seen as offloading hidden costs onto society. Unsustainable production practices harm the environment, degrade our natural resources, biological diversity, and human health. Furthermore, these same companies with the help of various US government agencies encourage obesity, as weight gain and profit gain seem to be directly correlated. This perspective often envisions the consumer as a hapless victim, easily overwhelmed by an endless barrage of sophisticated marketing tricks and brainwashing. Food consumption is actually a complex social and cultural process. Contradictory consumer forces or oppositions, novelty and tradition, health and indulgence, economy and extravagance, and care and convenience are key factors in defining the food industry. This session is about deepening our understanding of how our current food system actually functions. Our panelists will discuss the market and public policy forces that define this industry.
1 Moderator: Eugene Kahn (Gene), President and Chief Executive Officer, Small Planet Foods Resource Panel: Charles Benbrook, President, Benbrook Consulting Services Lawrence Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer, NutraSweet Company Bill Niman, President, Niman Ranch Rory Delaney, Sr. Vice President Strategic Technology Development, General Mills, Inc. Chuck Marcy, President and Chief Executive Officer, Horizon Organic
12:30 p.m. Lunch Woodlands Dining Room
BREAKOUTS OR WORKSHOP
2-3:15 p.m. Breakout Session I Breakout Rooms See breakout session schedule
3:45-5 p.m. Breakout Session II Breakout Rooms See breakout session schedule OR 2 – 5 p.m. Workshop Grand Ballroom Resources for Developing and Expanding Community Based Food Systems It is critical that organizations and institutions diversify and expand their funding base in order to remain viable and effective over the long-term. The many programs of the USDA and other agencies continue to be an excellent source of opportunity. In this session participants will have a chance to learn of current federal program priorities, discuss how their project may fit, learn of future directions, and discuss details with leaders of these programs. This is also a chance to inform program leadership of what is working in the field and what areas participants feel these programs should focus on in the future.
Introduction: August Schumacher, Former Undersecretary of Agriculture Moderator: Lou Gallegos, Assistant Secretary for Administration, USDA Resource Panel: William Buchanan, Director of Civil Rights and Community Outreach, USDA Risk Management Agency Elizabeth Tuckermanty, National Program Leader for Community Food Systems, USDA-CSREES Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Programs Mark Bailey, USDA-CSREES, Economic and Community Systems Unit Dr. Van Hanh Nguyen, Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement, Health and Human Services
3:15-3:45 p.m. Break
2 – 5 p.m. Breakouts or Workshops as above
6 – 7 p.m. Reception Forest Oasis Event Space (outdoors)
7 – 9 p.m. Dinner Forest Oasis Event Space (outdoors)
2 Day Two: Thursday April 24, 2003
7:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast In front of Grand Ballroom
8:30 a.m. Opening Sue Miller Hurst
9:15 a.m. PLENARY SESSION II “In My Lifetime….”: The Food System I Know and the Food System I Want to See How do young people relate to the food system, and how are some of them working to change it? These questions will be the focus of this session led by two young people whose presentation will include video shot in two Boston-area high schools exploring teenagers’ food choices. By the end, audience members will understand why it is important to include young people in their conversations and actions, and they will have greater insight into what it would take to change the “food reality” for young people. Q & A to follow.
Presenters: Wilbur Bullock and Beth Mullen, The Food Project, Boston, MA
10 a.m. Break
10:30 a.m. PLENARY SESSION III Policy Levers for Community-Based Food Systems Food systems have powerful effects on the health of people, communities, ecosystems, and the environment. Agricultural, economic, environmental, and other policies in turn have important effects on food systems. This panel will address how U.S. policy in particular affects local, national, and global food systems. Panelists will explore what kinds of U.S. policy would move us toward a food system that enhances the health of people, communities, ecosystems, and the environment. Q&A will follow.
Moderator: Craig Cox, Executive Director, Soil and Water Conservation Society Panel: Hunt Shipman, Staff Director, U.S. Committee on Agriculture Jan Kees Vis, Vice President and Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager, Unilever Corporation Tim Galvin, Senior Analyst, Agriculture and Trade, Committee on the Budget, United States Senate
12:30 p.m. Lunch
BREAKOUTS AND WORKSHOPS 2-3:15 p.m. Breakout Session I Breakout Rooms See breakout session list for topics. 3:45-5 p.m. Breakout Session II Breakout Rooms See breakout session list for topics. OR
3 2 – 5 p.m. Workshops
Choice A Telling it like it is. How to Talk About Your Work so People Listen: Persuasive Storytelling For Advocates Houston Room Ali Webb, Communications Manager, W.K. Kellogg Foundation Brenda Foster, Senior Director, Vanguard Communications Nicole de Beaufort, Account Supervisor, Vanguard Communications
You know the reasons to support community-based food systems, but are you communicating them effectively to consumers, media, and policymakers? Join us for a fun, interactive session where we'll discuss and practice methods for telling more persuasive and compelling stories about farming, food, diet, and health. The workshop will include instruction on presentation skills, message development, and delivery and sound bites. We'll also work on eliminating the jargon that can inhibit clear and effective communication with potential supporters and advocates. OR Choice B Scenarios for the Future of the Agri-Food System: Developing Strategies that Lead to Our Desired Future Grand Ballroom Chris Peterson, Nowlin Chair of Consumer-Responsive Agriculture, Michigan State University
With Dr. Peterson as facilitator, participants will explore future scenarios for the agri-food system. These scenarios will suggest the range of possible outcomes for the system's future based on the driving forces and uncertainties that will create the future. After an initial discussion of the scenarios themselves, the remainder of the workshop will focus on having participants develop strategies for responding to the various scenarios as well as strategies for creating the most desirable future.
3:15-3:45 p.m. Break
2 – 5 p.m. Breakouts or Workshops as above
5 p.m. Open time
6 p.m. Dinner Woodlands Dining Room
7:30 p.m. Latin Music and Dancing Woodlands Ballroom (Lessons at 7:30, Dancing ends at 10:30 p.m.)
Day 3: Friday, April 25, 2003
7:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast In front of Grand Ballroom
8:30 a.m. Opening Through the Eyes of Youth: Documentation and Storytelling
A youth-adult team will present a video reflection of the conference. The team will interview conference participants during the course of the conference and edit a video that will be displayed and utilized to document and archive data, as well as a teaching tool.
4 Presenters: Francisco Guajardo, Co-Founder of Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, Instructor, University of Texas Pan American Martin Rivas, Technician/Webmaster and Video Coordinator, Llano Grande Center for Research and Development Gilbert Perales, Documentarian at the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development
9 a.m. PLENARY SESSION IV Working Across Differences, Differently Our work requires that we effectively work across differences, whether cultural, ethnic, racial or ideological differences, or levels of income or education. For example, farm workers and farmers have often found themselves on different sides of the fence, and industrial food systems seem incompatible with community based food systems. Yet these differences, and many others, are what we have to work through to successfully create the conditions for a more widespread shift toward a food system supportive of healthy communities, people, and ecosystems.
In this session our panelists will discuss what their organization is learning as they work across differences to create the conditions for a more widespread shift toward a food system supportive of healthy communities, people, and ecosystems.
Moderator: Meg Scott Phipps, Commissioner of Agriculture, North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Panel: Guadalupe Gamboa, United Farm Workers Union, Washington State Paul Hollander, Farmer, Washington State Michael Rozyne, Managing Director and Founder, Red Tomato Shirley Sherrod, State of Georgia Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives
10:45 a.m. Break
11:15 a.m. Imagining What’s Possible Grand Ballroom Oran Hesterman and Gail Imig, Food and Society Program Directors, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
11:45 a.m. Closing Circle Grand Ballroom Sue Miller Hurst
12:30 p.m. Adjourn and depart
Travel Safely
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Breakout Sessions Schedule
BREAKOUT SESSIONS SCHEDULE FAS Conference 2003
Breakout Session I Wednesday, April 23 2:00 – 3:15 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Houston Go! Grass: The Health Jo Robinson, Freelance writer This session will present new information about the health and Environmental Margaret Mellon, Director, Agriculture and benefits of raising animals on pasture; the risk to our use Benefits of Pasture- Biotechnology, Union of Concerned Scientists of key antibiotics in animal production; and the Raised Products environmental benefits of pasture-based production. Spanish The Taste of Place — Arlin S. Wasserman, Michigan Land Use Institute, Food Most Americans experience food primarily through taste. The Connection & Society Policy Fellow Our work in community food systems is just as much Between Food, Taste, Amy Trubek, New England Culinary Institute, Food & about place. Each place imparts a unique taste on the Value and the Place Society Policy Fellow foods grown there, one that persists despite every effort to Where its Grown produce uniform commodity crops. The “taste of place,” known in France as terroir, offers a unique opportunity for farmers and artisan producers to make more money while delivering higher quality food. It’s a principle that can orient everyone in the food system, from grower, to chef, to eater, around protecting a sense and taste of their community. It provides the underpinnings of an exciting new business model that can be replicated anywhere but never scaled up beyond a specific, special place. Food and Society Policy Fellows, Amy Trubek and Arlin Wasserman, will explain the “taste of place,” its relationship to the work of food professionals, and its implications for a new agricultural economy. Republic Advanced Farm Erik Wells, Program Director, Advanced Farm Advanced Farm Ecosystems is developing a series of Ecosystems: Ecosystems, Intervale Foundation technologies that revolutionize the way food is produced Ecological Food, Fuel and wastes are managed. Their strategy is to integrate with and Fiber Production existing farms and industries to utilize waste streams for through Waste production and transform liabilities to assets. Recovery, Diversified Agriculture, Innovative Marketing, and Value- Added Processing
7 Breakout Session I Wednesday, April 23 2:00 – 3:15 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Crockett Drivers of the Food Gene Kahn, CEO, Small Planet Foods This will be a chance to go deeper into the discussion System: Continuing the Bill Niman, President, Niman Ranch around drivers of the food system, their impact on society, Plenary Discussion Chuck Benbrook, President, Benbrook Consulting and strategies for change. Services Larry Benjamin, CEO, Nutrasweet Company Rory Delaney, Senior Vice President, General Mills, Inc. Chuck Marcy, President and CEO, Horizon Organic French What we need to know Hal Hamilton, Executive Director, Sustainability Institute Hal Hamilton and Don Seville will share results from about commodity Don Seville, Project Manager, Sustainability Institute research on the core drivers of commodity systems, the systems as we traps those systems fall into, and case studies of solutions mainstream sustainable in agriculture, forestry, and fishing. Participants will agriculture explore how sustainable agriculture initiatives can anticipate “push back” from larger systems and find high- leverage opportunities to shift mainstream agriculture. Confederate Building Community Heliodoro Diaz-Cisneros, Program Manager, Latin The conditions under which the food system operates, and Based Food Systems in American Programs, WKKF the needs it is called upon to fill. are different in the Latin America Several NGO leaders from Latin America various countries in Latin America than in the US. This session will explore issues of community based food systems from the Latin American perspective. It will be informed by a recent study tour of the urban and rural food system of Cuba.
8 Breakout Session II Wednesday, April 23 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Houston Power and “The Frank Fear, Professor, Michigan State University, University-community partnerships are valuable Table”: Facilitator mechanisms for advancing local agriculture and food Dynamics of Michael T. Morrissey, Director and Professor, Oregon systems development. Vibrant and sustainable University-Community State University Seafood Lab, Oregon State University partnerships require understanding and responding Partnerships Mike Dickerson, Deputy Director, Shorebank Enterprise meaningfully to complex dynamics, including matters of Pacific institutional culture, the peculiarities of history and Danny Block, Austin Co-Op context, and power. In this session, participants in The LaDonna Redmond, President, Institute for Community W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food Systems Higher Resource Development Education-Community Partnership will share what they Rich Pirog, Program Leader – Marketing and Food have learned from experiences in the field. Systems Initiative, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture Gary Huber, Food Systems Program Leader, Practical Farmers of Iowa Spanish Building Local Food Ken Meter, Director, Crossroads Resource Center Several rural communities are pursuing local economic Economies Patty Cantrell, Agriculture Project Director, Michigan analysis, using diverse approaches. This variety of Land Use Institute approaches is a strength since it allows research to be Hank Herrera, Planner/Development Specialist, Northeast tailored to local conditions. This gathering creates an Neighborhood Association excellent opportunity for practitioners and community leaders to share insights from this work and to develop more informed approaches. Further, this session will help advance a current research project now underway, involving Crossroads Resource Center and several rural partners. Republic Getting Youth to the Marcus Brooks, The Food Project In this workshop led by youth from The Food Project, we Table: How to Create Alex Gomes, The Food Project will examine the perceived barriers and real possibilities Effective Youth-Adult Beth Mullen, The Food Project for involving youth in food systems work. Workshop Partnerships for Food Jenney Szeto, The Food Project participants will come to understand the philosophy Systems Work Anim Steele, Associate Director, The Food Project behind youth-adult partnerships and will walk away with Greg Gale, Program Director, The Food Project concrete tools and exercises for making them happen.
9 Breakout Session II Wednesday, April 23 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Crockett Differentiation of Meat Stan Johnson, Vice Provost for Extension, Iowa State This session will focus on the importance of Products and University Extension, Session Facilitator differentiating food/meat products as a way of increasing Community Based Paul Willis, Manager, Niman Ranch Pork Company the choices to consumers and economically Food Systems Maria Vakulskas Rosmann, Marketing Manager, Co- sustaining/growing a segment of the meat industry that has owner Rosmann Family Farms more of a community base. What are the traits for which consumers are willing to pay premiums (organic, environmentally friendly production systems, more friendly to the animals, relation to GMOs, etc. )? What systems of quality management are required to certify these traits and make them marketable? How do we identify and serve the markets for these differentiated products? What is the potential of these markets for adding to the well being of consumers and the communities within which the producers reside? French The Competing Kate Clancy, Director, Wallace Center for Agricultural In this session, Kate will describe the competing policy Agendas in Farm and and Environmental Policy, Winrock International agendas inside of which sustainable agriculture and food Food Policy OR The system advocates are attempting to engage institutional Policy Context that change and propose new legislation. Then participants, in Makes It So Darn Hard small groups, will discuss how we can engage with rural to Get What We Want advocates, with larger farms and agribusinesses, and with environmental organizations to enhance the likelihood of success in the policy arena. Confederate Renewing an Steve Stevenson, Senior Scientist, Center for Integrated The American agri-food system is becoming increasingly Agriculture of the Agricultural Systems, University of Wisconsin dualistic featuring, on the one hand, farming and food Middle Fred Kirschenmann, Director, Leopold Center, Iowa State enterprises that are successfully developing direct marketing University strategies and, on the other hand, enterprises that effectively Theresa Marquez, Marketing and Sales Director, Organic contract for the sale of bulk agricultural commodities. Increasingly at risk and disappearing are mid-scale, family Valley Family of Farms / CROPP Cooperative farms that are currently unable to successfully market bulk commodities or to market directly to consumers. This breakout session will introduce ideas and solicit feedback relative to the establishment of a national initiative sponsored by a network of sustainable agriculture centers in land-grant universities to develop strategies for regenerating a significant agriculture-of- the-middle.
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Breakout Session III Thursday, April 24 2:00 – 3:15 p. m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Spanish Location, Location, Jac Smit, President, Urban Agriculture Network The locally-based/society-based food system occurs in Location space, the same space in which we live, work, and play. Jac Smit, urban regional planner, will create some procedures to rank or prioritize space in the city center, the suburban rings, and the urban fringe for generating enhanced food security, an environment for living and community development. Crockett The Midwest Jim Ennis, Program Director, Midwest Food Alliance The Midwest Collaborative is a group designed to Collaborative: Gary Huber, Food Systems Program Leader, Practical research and develop strategic consumer communication Communicating to Farmers of Iowa messages and strategies for pasture-raised products—beef, Consumers the Tim Bowser, Executive Director, FoodRoutes Network pork, poultry, dairy products marketed directly to Benefits of Pasture- consumers in the Midwest. This session will discuss some raised Meat, Poultry, of the findings and highlights of their research and how it and Dairy Products will be used to develop communication messages and strategies for farmers and cooperatives marketing pasture- raised products in the upper Midwest. French Policy Lever and Craig Cox, Executive Director, Soil and Water This session will continue the discussion from the plenary Community Based Conservation Society session and provide time to speak at more length with the Food Systems Hunt Shipman, Staff Director, U.S. Committee on panel members. Agriculture Jan Kees Vis, Vice President and Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager, Unilever Corporation Tim Galvin, Senior Analyst, Agriculture and Trade, Committee on the Budget, United States Senate Confederate Renewing the Jan Joannides, Executive Director, Renewing the Individuals, families, groups, and communities have Countryside-Creating Countryside, Inc. launched literally thousands of new projects, businesses, Food Security and Mark Ritchie, President, Institute for Agricultural and and initiatives that are renewing the countryside all across Sustainable Rural Trade Policy the country. This workshop will look at an exciting new Communities approach to gathering up and sharing these stories Through Working designed to build the entire rural development movement. Landscapes and The Renewing the Countryside movement is using Local Markets everything from web pages and coffee table-style books to tradeshows and state fair booths to help support existing local food producers and to help new entrepreneurs get started. 11 Breakout Session III Thursday, April 24 2:00 – 3:15 p. m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Houston Telling it like it is. Ali Webb, Communications Manager, W.K. Kellogg You know the reasons to support community-based food How to Talk About Foundation systems, but are you communicating them effectively to Your Work so Brenda Foster, Senior Director, Vanguard Communications consumers, media, and policymakers? People Listen: Nicole de Beaufort, Account Supervisor, Vanguard Join us for a fun, interactive session where we'll discuss Persuasive Communications and practice methods for telling more persuasive and Storytelling For compelling stories about farming, food, diet, and health. Advocates The workshop will include instruction on presentation skills, message development and delivery, and sound Workshop bites. We'll also work on eliminating the jargon that can Goes 2:00 - 5:00 pm inhibit clear and effective communication with potential supporters and advocates. Republic
Breakout Session IV Thursday, April 24 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Spanish Scaling up Kathleen Delate, Assistant Professor of Horticulture, Iowa In this session, we will focus on the opportunities for Community-Based State University scaling up community-based food systems. This will Production to Access Lewis O. Grant, Senior Advisor, Grant Family Farms include expanding the capacity to serve larger markets and Broader Markets Larry Thompson, Farmer different marketing institutions/systems. Questions we will explore include: What are the mechanisms for linking sets of community based producers in supply networks or other coordinating organizational systems? How are these systems organized? How in particular, are these systems appropriate to the producers? How can you keep the community distinction and traits in a larger, scaled-up system? How can you insure the integrity of these scaled- up systems? What is the experience with scaling up systems? What are the advantages and pitfalls? How can scaling up broaden the possibilities for expanding community based food systems?
12 Breakout Session IV Thursday, April 24 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION Republic “New American Hugh Joseph, Director, New Entry Sustainable Farming The New American Farmer Initiative (NAFI) was Farmer Initiative”: Project Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition launched in 2001 to support new, emerging, and Promoting a Local Science and Policy immigrant family farmers, and to help sustain regional Identity Chef Michel Nischan, Board Member Chefs food systems. The NAFI marketing strategy is designed to Collaborative, President of Sources and Resources. maximize the appeal and value of fresh, sustainably- grown local farm products, particularly to high-end users, while demonstrating cost-effective distribution methods. The presentation will review NAFI’s distribution model and the development of standards of identify (e.g., product qualities, sourcing, and distribution) designed to promote a local identity and to influence prices and demand for locally-grown specialty products. Crockett Current WTO Allen Hance, Senior Policy Analyst, Northeast-Midwest The future direction of U.S. farm policy will increasingly Negotiations and the Institute be shaped by constraints imposed through the World Opportunity to Chart Gus Schumacher, Former Undersecretary of Agriculture, Trade Organization. Current and future negotiations under New Directions in USDA the WTO present an opportunity to engage the broad U.S. Farm Policy Tim Galvin, Senior Analyst, Agriculture and Trade, agricultural community, in a collaborative fashion, on Committee on the Budget, United States Senate fundamental changes in farm policy that offer support to the rural sector while meeting likely new WTO standards limiting "trade distorting" subsidies. The result could be a future U.S. farm policy that is more environmentally and economically sustainable, and that forges a stronger bond between the agricultural sector and the consuming, taxpaying public. This session will review current WTO negotiations, their potential impact on U.S. agricultural policy, and opportunities for working with the agricultural community to develop new WTO-compliant farm policies, including promising “green box” (i.e., non-trade distorting) policies both current and proposed that might form the basis for broader-based farm policy reforms.
13 Breakout Session IV Thursday, April 24 3:45 – 5:00 p.m. ROOM TITLE PRESENTERS AND RESOURCE PEOPLE DESCRIPTION French Sustainable Karl R Rábago, Sustainability Alliances Leader, Cargill This session will look at some of the exciting new Production Standards Dow LLC possibilities for enhancing ecological, social, and for Bio-Energy and Mary Tkach, Executive Director, Environmental economic sustainability of local food systems and local Bio-Industries: Sustainability, Aveda Corporation food producers as a result of new developments in the Linking Non-Food Linda Meschke, Executive Director, Blue Earth River areas of bio-energy and bio-industrial production. Farmers Production Activities Basin Initiative are working with buyers in small, medium, and large with Food Production Mark Ritchie, President, Institute for Agriculture and companies to develop production standards and in a Sustainable Development Policy purchasing arrangements that ensure sustainable System production practices and sustainable income streams for the farmers. This workshop will include producers, buyers, and users of these products and developers of new sustainable production standards for bio-industrial crops. Confederate Changing the Way Ann Cooper, Executive Chef Director of Wellness and As childhood obesity rises and school food service is America Feeds Its Nutrition, Ross School reduced to processed foods and government commodities Children Meredith Taylor, Program Manager, Community Food while the local farm economies plummet, The Ross Resource Center School has answered the call by providing a working model to revolutionize school food service. This presentation gives an overview of their alternative approach to school food service that provides nutritious food while supporting local/regional farms and food purveyors, and stresses the importance of organic, sustainable food choices and providing valuable wellness skills such as nutrition education and gardening.
Houston Telling it like it is. Ali Webb, Communications Manager, W.K. Kellogg See 2:00 for description How to Talk About Foundation Your Work so Brenda Foster, Senior Director, Vanguard Communications People Listen: Nicole de Beaufort, Account Supervisor, Vanguard Persuasive Communications Storytelling For Advocates
Continued Workshop Goes 2:00 - 5:00 pm
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FAS Conference Speakers
FAS Conference Speakers
Mark Bailey Mark Bailey is the Director of Integrated Programs, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Bailey is responsible for the oversight of a number of programs. The Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems Competitive Grants Program (IFAFS) has 17 topic areas (4 genomics, 3 biotechnology, 2 human nutrition, other uses from agricultural products, 4 natural resources and the environment, farm efficiency and profitability, critical and emerging issues, and graduate traineeship programs) and the Integrated Research, Education and Extension Competitive Grants Program (IREECGP) has three major programs: (pest management; food safety, and water quality). Two other programs fall within the integrated programs and they are Farm Risk Education Program and the Community Food Projects Program.
Dr. Bailey has served as a research scientist (Economic Research Service, USDA); was the Executive Director of the Joint Council on Food and Agricultural Sciences, a former advisory body to the Secretary of Agriculture; Program Director for the Small Business Innovative Research Program, USDA; Program Director for the social science programs of the National Research Initiative, Co-Program Director of the Community Food Projects Program prior to being appointed as the Director of Integrated Programs, CSREES. He is fully familiar with the content of these funding opportunities and has also made numerous presentations and conducted many workshops on successful grant proposal preparation.
Chuck Benbrook Dr. Charles Benbrook runs Benbrook Consultant Services, a small consulting firm based in Sandpoint, Idaho. He worked in Washington, D.C. on agricultural policy, science and regulatory issues from 1979 through 1997. He served for 1.5 years as the agricultural staff expert on the Council for Environmental Quality at the end of the Carter Administration and as Executive Director of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture during the first three years of the Reagan Presidency.
Benbrook was the Executive Director, Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences from 1984-1990, a period of major growth for the Board largely as a result of a grant from the Kellogg Foundation. In late 1990 he formed Benbrook Consulting Services. Work for BCS has focused on pesticide risks and regulation, sustainable development, agricultural policy, biotechnology, and food safety and quality.
He has a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University. Benbrook can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 208-263-5236.
Larry Benjamin Lawrence Benjamin is Chief Executive Officer of The NutraSweet Company.
Prior to NutraSweet, Mr. Benjamin was a senior operating executive and advisor for two private equity firms, Oak Hill Capital and Roark Capital Group. At Oak Hill, Mr. Benjamin was President and CEO of Specialty Foods Corporation, a $2 billion diversified food concern, and Stella
16 Foods, a leading specialty cheese producer. Prior to Oak Hill, he served in several executive positions at Kraft Foods, most recently as President of its Budget Gourmet/Birds Eye division.
Mr. Benjamin graduated with a BA degree from Brown University and obtained his MBA degree from Columbia University. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of The NutraSweet Company, Doane Pet Care Company and several non-profit organizations.
Danny Block Dr. Daniel Block is an Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography, Sociology, Economics, and Anthropology at Chicago State University. Dr. Block received his B.A. in 1989 from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota with dual majors in Geology and Geography. After completing his bachelors degree he decided to wed human and physical geography by focusing on agriculture and soil conservation. This led to his M.S., completed in 1991 in Geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His thesis concentrated on enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program in an area of northern Nebraska. This led him into further study of agricultural policy and the relationship between the onset of policy and consumer and producer activist groups. His Ph.D., completed in 1997 in Geography at UCLA, told the story on the creation of the modern food system by focusing on the development of U.S. dairy laws. After graduating, Dr. Block spent two years at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. Since 1999, he has been at Chicago State, where he has focused on food provisioning systems in the Chicago area. He has been particularly involved with created alliances between university and community partners interested in building access to healthy food in inner city Chicago neighborhoods.
Tim Bowser Timothy Bowser is Executive Director of FoodRoutes Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and promotion of community-based, local food systems that are ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just through the development of strategic communications tools and models.
In 1991 he founded the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) and directed that organization until 2000. Prior to PASA, Bowser served as Small Farms Coordinator for Penn State Cooperative Extension for 10 years. He is currently Co-Chair of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and serves on board of the White Dog Cafe Foundation. Bowser got his start in agriculture on his family's farm in Erie Co. PA.
Marcus Brooks Marcus Brooks, 20, started with The Food Project five years ago in the Summer Youth Program. He is currently an Intern helping to shape the BLAST Initiative, and is excited to meet more youth and adults doing food systems work. His main interests include football, movies, and listening to hip hop music such as Mos Def and Cam’ron. This August, he will be starting City Year Boston as a Corp member before going back to college in the following year.
William Buchanan William "Bill" Buchanan is the Director of The Risk Management Agency's Civil Rights and Community Outreach Staff. The mission of this staff is to ensure the small and limited resource farmers and ranchers and other underserved entities have opportunities to fully participate in
17 ALL RMA's programs and benefit from its services. The Agency's Outreach program is implemented through several cooperative agreements with community based organizations, colleges and universities, state departments of agriculture and other partners that share our mission to provide outreach and technical assistant to small and limited resource farmers and ranchers.
Born in Georgia, Bill received degrees in Agriculture from The Fort Valley State University and the University of Georgia. He also studied weed science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. His career in USDA includes, a soil scientist for Natural Resource and Conservation Service in West Virginia, an Agricultural Extension Agent in North Carolina, a Crop Insurance Underwriter, a Program Manager and a Hearing Officer. He has been employed by USDA for 24 years.
Wil Bullock Wilbur J. Bullock, 22, started working at The Food Project in the summer of 1995 at age 15. He has held a number of positions and is currently a full-time Food Project Fellow. His main focus is on urban enterprise and product development.
Patty Cantrell Patty Cantrell leads the Michigan Land Use Institute’s effort to promote a new entrepreneurial brand of agriculture as a key economic and community development strategy. Raised on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks, Patty began her career as an economic research associate at the Rocky Mountain Institute, an international resource policy think tank. She later became an award- winning business reporter and columnist at the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader and, after that, a freelance writer with articles in Ms. magazine and U.S. News and World Report. Patty graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri, earning B.A. degrees in economics and political science. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Cologne, Germany. She also earned a M.A. in Business Administration from Drury College.
Kate Clancy Kate Clancy is Managing Director of the Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural and Environmental Policy at Winrock International. Previously, she was Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Service Management at Syracuse University; Nutritionist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission; and Assistant Professor at Cornell University. In 1985 she was a Resident Fellow at the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy, and in 1995 was a Visiting Professor at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition at the University of Washington and her Doctoral degree at the University of California at Berkeley in Nutrition Sciences. She has been a consultant to many community food security and local food systems projects, and has written and spoken extensively on both areas. Her present interests are in capacity building for local policy efforts, food systems development, biotechnology and the interface of agriculture and rural development.
Ann Cooper Ann Cooper, CEC, is the Executive Chef and Director of Wellness and Nutrition of The Ross School in East Hampton, New York, where she has cultivated an innovative food service program serving over 1000 regional, organic, seasonal and sustainable meals each day. Ann is
18 also Consulting Chef for The Putney Inn in Putney, Vermont, and the author of the recently released book Bitter Harvest: A Chef’s Perspective on the Hidden Dangers in the Foods We Eat and What You Can do About It, and A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen: The Evolution of Women Chefs, published in 1998. Chef Cooper, a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, was one of the first fifty women to be certified as an Executive Chef by the educational arm of the American Culinary Federation.
Ann’s career has taken her from positions with Holland America Cruises to Radisson Hotels to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Telluride Ski Resort where she catered parties of up to 20,000. She has been featured in Gourmet, Food Arts, Chef, Restaurants & Institutions, Nation’s Restaurant News, National Culinary Review, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Woman’s Day, Newsday and has been on both local and National radio and television shows. Ann has shared her knowledge and experiences by giving seminars at the Smithsonian, the National Restaurant Association Show and conferences hosted by The Culinary Institute of America, Chefs Collaborative, Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, the International Association of Culinary Professionals and as a visiting Emens Professor at Ball State University.
Ann is President of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, a former member of the Executive Committee of Chefs Collaborative, past President of The American Culinary Federation of Central Vermont, a past member of The Alumni Committee of the Culinary Institute of America, on the advisory board of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Stone Barn Project and is currently serving on the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board.
Craig Cox Craig has devoted his working life to natural resource conservation beginning in 1977 when he joined the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a field biologist. Since that time he has served as Senior Staff Officer with the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences; Professional Staff Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Special Assistant to the Chief of USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service; and briefly as Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA. He is currently Executive Director of the Soil and Water Conservation Society -- a professional Society dedicated to promoting the art and science of natural resource conservation.
Nicole de Beaufort Brenda Foster and Nicole de Beaufort represent Vanguard Communications, a Hispanic woman-owned public relations firm specializing in communications campaigns that change attitudes, perceptions and behaviors, and shape public debate about critical social issues. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm was founded in 1987 and has focused its time, effort and experience on issues related to public health, health, mental health, safe food and farming, the environment, energy conservation, human rights, civil liberties, education, and other quality-of- life concerns.
Rory Delaney Senior Vice President, Strategic Technology Development General Mills, Inc. As senior vice president, Delaney leads a companywide effort to develop next-generation product and processing technologies in General Mills’ core businesses. He and his team focus
19 on developing new platforms and major processing projects to help businesses sustain productivity gains and competitive advantage.
Previously, Delaney was responsible for leading the innovation and commercialization of product, process and package development for five divisions, including Meals, Baking Products, Pillsbury USA, Bakeries and Foodservice, and International.
He joined the company’s senior management from The Pillsbury Company, which General Mills acquired in 2001. In Delaney’s most recent Pillsbury post as senior vice president of technology, he oversaw the development and application of food technologies throughout Pillsbury’s global operations.
Before joining Pillsbury, Delaney was senior vice president of technology for Frito-Lay, North America. Delaney served in the Frito-Lay/PepsiCo system for 18 years, holding a number of key management positions, including senior vice president of technology for PepsiCo Foods International and senior vice president of research and development and global quality assurance for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Delaney is an advisory board member at several universities, including the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville, Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University and the College of Agriculture, also at Texas A&M. He serves on the board of directors of the Kentucky Opera and the Dallas Opera.
Delaney received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University College in London in 1967, a doctorate degree in biochemical engineering from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom in 1970 and a post-doctorate from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in 1976. In addition, Delaney earned a master’s degree in technology management from Hamilton University in New York in 2001.
Kathleen Delate Dr. Delate graduated with a B.S. in Agronomy and an M.S. in Horticulture from the University of Florida. Her Ph.D. in Agricultural Ecology (Sustainable Agriculture) was obtained in 1991 from the University of California-Berkeley. She worked at the University of Hawaii as a Postdoctoral Fellow in tropical crop pest management and coordinated the USDA-SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) Professional Development Program for the Pacific Islands. In her current position as Assistant Professor-Organic Crops Specialist at Iowa State University, she is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Horticulture and Agronomy, and conducts research on organic grains, herbs, fruit and vegetables, in addition to Extension work in value- added, community systems agriculture.
Heliodoro Diaz-Cisneros Dr. Heliodoro Diaz Cisneros is a program director at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. His office is in Texcoco, Mexico. His duties include managing and monitoring active projects, reviewing and addressing new proposals, and taking part in domestic and international planning and development.
Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Diaz Cisneros was a full-time professor at the University of Chapingo’s Center for Rural Development, in Mexico. There, he taught master’s degree-level courses, counseled students, conducted research, and provided consulting services.
20 During his career, Dr. Diaz Cisneros has been involved with a range of agronomy-related education, research, and field study projects. At the University of Chapingo, he also held key administration positions, and helped design programs for graduate studies. An accomplished researcher, he has published or presented more than 40 professional papers on agriculture.
Dr. Diaz Cisneros earned his bachelor’s degree in agricultural science at the National School of Agriculture, Chapingo, Mexico. He took a master’s degree in statistics from the Colegio de Postgraduados, Chapingo, Mexico, and received a doctorate in development from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Additionally, he completed post-doctoral work at the Harvard Institute of International Development, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mike Dickerson Mike Dickerson is Deputy Director of Shorebank Enterprise Pacific, a non-profit affiliate of Shorebank Corporation of Chicago, IL. Shorebank Enterprise promotes conservation-based development in the coastal temperate rain forest of the Pacific Northwest and is based in the Willapa Bay watershed of SW Washington State. Through lending, technical assistance, and information, Shorebank Enterprise seeks to identify market forces to influence business practices, which support ecosystem restoration, preservation, and rural economic development. Mike has over twenty years experience in the field of community-based economic development, including extensive experience in market and product development, and the successful development and implementation of programmatic partnerships.
Jim Ennis Jim Ennis is the program director for Midwest Food Alliance —a joint project of Land Stewardship Project and Cooperative Development Services— based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is directing a team in the development and implementation of a new certification program in the Midwest dedicated to promoting the expanded use of sustainable farming systems. Introduced in 2000, the program has certified 65 MWFA-Approved farmers and includes 40 grocery stores throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. Jim has over eleven years of marketing and project management experience; leading cross-functional teams in marketing food and consumer products with The Pillsbury Company and The Clorox Company respectively.
Jim earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Davis, where he studied Agricultural and Managerial Economics. He earned a Masters of Business Administration degree, with an emphasis in Marketing, from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management just prior to working for The Pillsbury Company.
Frank Fear Frank A. Fear is professor of resource development at Michigan State University and a Food and Society consultant with The W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He is especially interested in extraordinary change in higher education with special emphasis on institutional engagement and the leadership required. His work has been published recently in Innovative Higher Education, The Journal of Leadership Studies, and The Journal of Higher Education, Outreach, and Engagement.
21 Brenda Foster Brenda Foster and Nicole de Beaufort represent Vanguard Communications, a Hispanic woman-owned public relations firm specializing in communications campaigns that change attitudes, perceptions and behaviors, and shape public debate about critical social issues. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm was founded in 1987 and has focused its time, effort and experience on issues related to public health, health, mental health, safe food and farming, the environment, energy conservation, human rights, civil liberties, education, and other quality-of- life concerns.
Rick Foster Rick Foster is Vice President for programs at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. His programming duties include guiding Foundation efforts in food systems, rural development and leadership. Dr. Foster also serves on the Executive Team that provides overall direction and leadership for the Foundation. Specific programming initiatives for which he is responsible include: Integrated Farming Systems, Food Systems Professions Education, Managing Information with Rural America, Mid South Delta Initiative, People and Land, and the Kellogg National Leadership Program.
Dr. Foster joined the Foundation in 1991 as a visiting professional while on sabbatical leave from the University of Nebraska, where he served as a professor of agricultural education. Prior to joining the Foundation as a visiting professional, he worked in international development activities at the School of Agriculture for the Humid Tropics (E.A.R.T.H.) in Costa Rica. Dr. Foster was selected for a staff position as a program director in 1992 and appointed vice president in 1995. Previously, Dr. Foster taught at Iowa State University, the University of Idaho, and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln between 1976-1992. He also was a Group VIII Kellogg National Fellow from 1987 to 1990.
Dr. Foster received his bachelor's, masters and doctoral degrees in agricultural education from Iowa State University in Ames. He has received many awards and honors, including the E.B. Knight Award from the National Association of Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture for outstanding scholarly publication (1990-91). He was recognized with the Distinguished Teaching Award (1987) and the Outstanding Young Professor (1990) at the University of Nebraska. He was cited as the Outstanding Student Advisor at the University of Idaho (1983). He has received distinguished service recognition from the National FFA organization, the Iowa State University Alumni Association, the National Board on Agriculture and the College of Education
Greg Gale Greg Gale has worked in youth development and sustainable agriculture for the past 15 years. He is the program coordinator for The Food Project in Boston, MA. He is currently helping develop the BAST initiative, a program designed to create youth leaders in food systems.
Lou Gallegos Lou Gallegos was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary for Administration for the U.S. Department of Agriculture on May 25, 2001.
In this position Gallegos oversees the policies and coordination of USDA’s administrative activities, including human resources, civil rights, ethics, procurement, small and disadvantaged business utilization, property management, headquarters operations, security and emergency
22 preparedness, judicial and administrative law reviews, contract appeals, and outreach to populations under-served by USDA programs and services.
Gallegos brings to USDA 30 years experience as an administrator in the private, federal, and state sectors, with proven ability to direct a large organization with diverse programs. Before joining USDA, Gallegos served as the chief of staff to Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico for six years. He coordinated the activities of the executive branch of state government to accomplish the governor’s agenda. In 1998, Gallegos accepted the additional duties of acting secretary, Human Services Department, taking on the challenges of implementing New Mexico’s welfare reform programs.
From 1991 to 1993, Gallegos was the special representative of former President George Bush to the 902 Covenant Negotiations with the Northern Marianas Islands. From 1989 through December 1990 he was the assistant secretary for policy, management and budget for the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. Gallegos’ distinguished public career also includes services as: the USDA state director of the former Farmers Home Administration; the executive director of the Republican Party of New Mexico; the chief of staff for U.S. Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico on Capitol Hill; and as the Denver and Dallas regional program director for the Food Stamp Program of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service.
A native of Amalia, N.M., Gallegos attended New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, N.M., and also the University of Maryland in College Park.
Gallegos has received numerous honors and awards throughout his public service career. Among them are the Distinguished Public Service Award from USDA; the Governor’s Distinguished Public Service Award, New Mexico; and the Order of Civil Merit, Commission Rank, from the King of Spain.
Tim Galvin Feb. 2001-Present Senior Analyst for Agriculture and Trade Committee on the Budget, United States Senate
1994-2001 Administrator (‘99-‘01), Associate Administrator (‘94-‘99) Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA
1989-1994 Legislative Assistant for Agriculture and Trade Office of U.S. Senator J. Robert Kerrey (D-NE)
1985-1989 Professional Staff Member Committee on Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives
1979-1985 Legislative Director Office of U.S. Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-IA)
Education: B.A., School of Public and International Affairs George Washington University M.S., School of Business Administration Georgetown University
23 Guadalupe Gamboa Guadalupe Gamboa is the Washington State Regional Director of the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO. For more than forty years, Guadalupe has fought for the rights of farmworkers in Washington Sate and throughout the country. After growing up working in the fields with his family in Washington, in 1968, Guadalupe became the first Chicano to be admitted to the University of Washington Law School. After leaving law school to work with the United Farm Workers, he returned to law school where he received his degree in 1980. He began working with Evergreen Legal Services where he was named State Director of the Farmworker Division. During this time, he worked to build a coalition of labor, church, student and community groups that successfully supported farmworkers in winning inclusion under state protections for minimum wage, workers’ comp, unemployment insurance, child labor, pesticide regulations, rest breaks, and payroll deduction reporting.
In 1995, Guadalupe was involved in the first agricultural union election in which farmworkers won a collective bargaining agreement with the largest wine grape grower in the Pacific Northwest, Chateau Ste Michelle. In 1996, Guadalupe left Evergreen Legal Services to become the state director for UFW in Washington. In September 2000, Guadalupe was elected National Vice President of the United Farm Workers of America. Under Guadalupe’s leadership, the UFW in Washington has now launched a retailer and consumer-based initiative to ensure a fair price for growers and a fair wage and working conditions for farm workers to address the negative impacts of industry consolidation and free trade.
Alex Gomes Alex Gomes, 17, has been with The Food Project for two and a half years and counting! He has participated as a Summer Program Crew Member, a member of the DIRT Crew, an Assistant Crew Leader, and now as a BLAST Intern, where his main interests are in youth philanthropy and youth exchanges. An 11th grader at Boston’s Madison Park High School, he is studying Web Design. His life dream is to become a successful architect and to have his own business. He loves to draw and play sports, especially basketball and football.
Lew Grant Presently, he is Senior Advisor with Grant Family Farms, a family organic vegetable farm in northern Colorado, and is Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University (CSU). He has managed a farm operation that increased in size from l00 acres in the early 1960's to about 2500 acres in 2002. This farm has practiced what is now considered "Sustainable Agriculture" from the early 1970's, with many fields farmed as organic, until 1987 when all fields became fully organic. In the early 1980's when his son, Andy graduated from Colorado State University and he took transitional retirement from C.S.U. there was a conversion from mostly alfalfa and grain crops to vegetable production. Grant Family Farms now managed by Andy, his son, ships organic vegetables to all sections of the U. S. as well as Japan, Mexico and Canada. He has and does serve as a speaker to various groups on sustainable and organic agriculture.
He is the recipient of a number of awards and has served on a number of local, state, and national committees and boards in the discipline areas of Atmospheric Science, Agriculture, and Conservation. He presently serves as a member of the Colorado IPM Advisory Committee, as a member of the National Horticulture Committee of the Farm Bureau, and as a member of the Research committee of the Organic Farming Research Foundation.
24 Francisco Guajardo Francisco Guajardo taught at Edcouch-Elsa High School in Elsa, Texas between 1990 and 2002. With his students, he also founded the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development in 1997. The Center operates as a vehicle through which rural south Texas youth participate in community and economic development initiatives through the use of research and technology. He currently teaches at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg, Texas.
Hal Hamilton Hal Hamilton is Executive Director of Sustainability Institute in Hartland VT. He was a dairy farmer in Kentucky for 15 years, and he helped found Community Farm Alliance, the National Family Farm Coalition, and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. He has written chapters in three books on agricultural policy and change.
Sustainability Institute uses systems thinking and organizational learning tools to help people put the principles of sustainability into practice.
In addition to their involvement in Sustainability Institute, Hal and Don are both active in developing Cobb Hill, in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont, an eco-village and diversified farm, now marketing cheese, eggs, organic vegetables, wool, lamb and maple syrup.
Allen Hance Allen Hance is a senior policy analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a non-profit and non- partisan research organization dedicated to economic vitality, environmental quality, and regional equity for Northeast and Midwest states. He directs the Institute’s Agriculture Policy program, which informs and educates policy makers in about a wide variety of conservation, sustainable agriculture, and economic development issues.
Allen was educated at Dartmouth College (BA), Boston College (PhD), and University of Michigan (MS) and was a Fulbright fellow in Germany. As a faculty member at the University of Illinois (Urbana), he researched and taught in several areas including environmental policy and ethics and public policy. Prior to joining the Institute, he served as a NOAA-Sea Grant Fellow in Rep. Ron Kind’s (D-WI) office, coordinating activities for the bipartisan Upper Mississippi River Task Force and working on Farm Bill reauthorization issues.
Hank Herrera Hank was born and raised in San Jose, California. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and Creighton University Medical School in Omaha, Nebraska. At Creighton, he did community organizing around health issues in the African American, Mexican American and Native American communities. He did his medical internship at Baltimore City Hospitals and psychiatric residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He served two years in the US Public Health Service, most of that time developing programs to increase Hispanic enrollment in health science schools. Hank was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Hopkins. He has served on the faculties of the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, and the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He received the Kellogg National Fellowship in 1985. Hank maintains a private practice of psychiatry in Rochester.
Hank co-founded and now works as Planner/Development Specialist for the NorthEast Neighborhood Alliance (the NENA), a comprehensive neighborhood development initiative
25 serving three low-income neighborhoods of color in Rochester, New York. In this capacity Hank serves as project director for the Greater Rochester Urban Bounty, an initiative to build urban agriculture production capacity and regional food system infrastructure funded by the Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Initiative. Hank serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Food Security Coalition and FoodRoutes Network, national organizations devoted to building community-based food systems and achieving full food security for all Americans.
Oran Hesterman Oran Hesterman is program director for Food Systems and Rural Development programming at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, he provides primary leadership to the Food and Society Initiative. His key responsibilities include domestic planning and development, reviewing and assessing new proposals, and managing active projects.
Previously, Dr. Hesterman researched and taught forage and cropping systems management, sustainable agriculture, and leadership development in the Crop and Soil Sciences department at Michigan State University in East Lansing. From 1987-1990, he was a fellow in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP). Dr. Hesterman was a fellow at the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy in Washington, D.C. In the area of sustainable agriculture, Hesterman has authored or co-authored more than 400 reports and journal publications.
Hesterman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of California-Davis in plant science/vegetable crops and agronomy, respectively. He received his doctorate in agronomy and business administration from the University of Minnesota, in St. Paul.
Paul Hollander
Gary Huber Food Systems Program Leader for Practical Farmers of Iowa. Leads various marketing and training projects. Coordinates the Pork Niche Market Working Group, an informal association of more than 30 groups working to develop and serve niche markets for pork. Certified NxLeveLTM for Agricultural Entrepreneurs Program instructor. BS degree in Agronomy/Public Service & Administration and MS degree in Rural Sociology from Iowa State University.
Gail Imig Gail Imig is program director for Food Systems and Rural Development at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this capacity, Gail develops and reviews programming priorities and initiatives related to food systems professions education and leadership development for institutional change in higher education, evaluates and recommends funding proposals, and administers projects. In addition, she provides leadership for initiatives, conducts on-site evaluations of proposed projects, and maintains her professional contacts in the areas of higher education, human development and family studies and rural and community development.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Gail was Associate Vice Provost at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Earlier she was Director of Michigan State University Extension. In these roles, she chaired the National Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP), served on the National Association of State Universities and the Land-Grant College Commission on
26 Outreach and Technology Transfer, and contributed to a Michigan State University Interdisciplinary Rural Family Poverty Research Team and Social Capital Interest Group.
She earned her doctorate degree from Michigan State University with a major in family ecology and a minor in higher education and administration. From the same university, she earned a master’s degree in family studies and sociology and a bachelor’s degree in home economics and biology education. Among her professional affiliations are the American Home Economics Association, Epsilon Sigma Phi, Gamma Sigma Delta, and the National and Michigan Councils on Family Relations. Gail has been awarded numerous grants in support of her work with youth and families, university outreach, and community development, and is the author of many professional papers and publications.
Jan Joannides Jan Joannides is an advocate and organizer for rural communities and citizens who are working to stimulate economic growth and enhance their communities through sustainable uses of their landscapes and resources. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband Brett and daughter, Olivia. Jan is the Director of Renewing the Countryside, Inc. She was managing editor of the Minnesota Renewing the Countryside book that was published in the winter of 2001. This book showcases innovative, sustainable initiatives across Minnesota. Jan is currently working with groups in other states to complete books with a similar theme.
Stan Johnson Stanley R. Johnson is Vice Provost for Extension and Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University (ISU). Extension is University-wide at ISU, working with all of the Colleges and managing the continuing education/distance learning program.
Before being appointed as Vice Provost for Extension, Stanley Johnson was the Director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at ISU. Prior to his appointment at ISU in 1985, Stanley Johnson held faculty positions in Economics and/or Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of California-Berkeley, Purdue University, the University of Georgia, the University of California-Davis, and the University of Connecticut. Stanley Johnson is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Hugh Joseph Hugh Joseph has over 20 years experience developing community food, agriculture, and nutrition programs at the local, regional and national levels. He is a founder and active member of several food system and food security coalitions. He provides training and technical assistance and authors guidance materials on community food security, evaluation, grantsmanship, and community food assessment. He holds a Masters and Ph.D. in nutrition from Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy where, within his current position in the Agriculture, Food and Environment program, he directs the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project that assists immigrants to re-enter farming in Massachusetts and other New England states.
27 Eugene Kahn Eugene (Gene B. Kahn was names a Vice President of General Mills in January 2000, when General Mills purchased Small Planet Foods (SPF), and it’s two organic brands, Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen.
Under Mr. Kahn’s direction, Small Planet Foods has become a worldwide distributor of organic products. Currently, SPF sells more than 50 branded products to the Japanese market. The company’s products are also sold in other Pacific Rim countries, as well as the UK and Australia.
Muir Glen was acquired by SPF in March of 1998, and is the country’s largest producer of organic tomato products, producing over 50 sku’s.
Mr. Kahn founded Cascadian Farm in 1972. Cascadian Farm currently produces more than 160 organic products, and is a worldwide grower, manufacturer and distributor.
Mr. Kahn is an internationally recognized speaker and educator on issues relating to organic and sustainable agriculture. Mr. Kahn served as chair of the Crop Standards Committee on the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board in the mid-90’s and was instrumental in developing the proposed national organic standards recently released by the USDA. He also led the development of consistent organic standards in his own state, resulting in the Washington State Organic Certification Program.
Mr. Kahn served as Treasurer of the Organic Trade Association for several terms, is a member of the Rachel Carson Council, and was recently elected to the Frontier Coop Board.
Mr. Kahn graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago with a B.A. in English Literature and a Minor in Botany. He also attended the University of Washington in Seattle in a post-graduate program in English Literature.
Jan Kees Vis JC (Jan Cornelis) Vis was born in 1955. He studied Chemistry at Leiden University in The Netherlands, and got his PhD in chemistry at the Technical University in Eindhoven in The Netherlands in 1984. In 1985 he joined Unilever, at the Unilever Research Laboratory in Vlaardingen. He held several positions there, until he moved to the Unilever subsidiary Van den Bergh Nederland in Rotterdam, where he worked on Environmental Life Cycle Analysis in the Environmental Department for almost 3 years (1991-1994). During that time he developed a software programme for LCA, did a number of LCA studies on foods products and raw materials, and joined in a project on Integral Chain Management.
In 1994, he moved to the Unilever Head Office in Rotterdam, to become the Unilever Foods Environmental Support Manager. Responsibilities included:
- Implementation of Environmental Management Systems in Unilever Foods companies - setting up environmental auditing for Unilever Foods Companies - setting up and organizing training courses for environmental site managers on the above - Environmental reporting - coordinating the Sustainable Agriculture initiative - Preparation of policy proposals on environmental issues
28 Since the start of 2001, he is full time responsible for coordinating Unilever’s Sustainable Agriculture programme.
Fred Kirschenmann Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a longtime leader in national and international sustainable agriculture circles, has been director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University since July 2000. Kirschenmann came to the Center from south central North Dakota where he operated his family's 3,500-acre organic farm.
Kirschenmann holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago and has written extensively about ethics and agriculture. He has served on the USDA's National Organic Standards Board and currently is a member of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation board of directors. At ISU, he holds an appointment in the department of religion and philosophy.
In 1978, Kirschenmann helped found North Dakota Natural Farmers, the organization that later became the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society. He helped organize Farm Verified Organic, Inc., an international private certification agency, and served as its president for a decade.
In 2001, Kirschenmann received the Seventh Generation Research Award from the Center for Rural Affairs for his work in sustainable food and farming systems. Progressive Farmer magazine honored him as its 2002 Leader of the Year in Agriculture.
Chuck Marcy Charles “Chuck” F. Marcy, President and CEO of Horizon Organic Holding Company, brings top-level leadership and food industry experience to the nation’s leading organic food brand. He joined the Colorado-based company in November 1999 as president and chief operating officer and was appointed to his current position in January 2000. Marcy is known for building dynamic brands, developing operational excellence as well as formulating and facilitating new strategic directions within the company he leads. He also has considerable experience building both domestic and international businesses, an important benefit for Horizon Organic, the world’s leading organic dairy company, with operations in Europe and Asia as well as North America.
For more than 25 years, Marcy has served as a high-level executive and strategist at several Fortune 500 corporations and dairy-related businesses. Before joining Horizon Organic, he was president and chief executive officer of the Sealright Corp. of Kansas City, Mo., a manufacturer of dairy packaging and packaging systems. At Sealright, he developed and implemented a new strategy that called for value-added products and services for Sealright customers. He also tripled international business.
Previously, Marcy was president of the Golden Grain Co., a subsidiary of Quaker Oats Co., maker of both the Near East brand of all-natural products and the well-known Rice-a-Roni brand. In addition, he served as president of the dairy division at Kraft General Foods. He also held senior marketing and strategic planning positions with Sara Lee Corp. and General Foods Corp.
During Marcy’s tenure at Horizon Organic, he has led the company to several important milestones, including: Improved results in 2001 and 2002, validating the company’s ability to rapidly grow sales while generating strong earnings momentum; Gaining significant new
29 distribution in U.S. supermarkets, Grew ACV for Horizon Organic milk products from 33% in 2000 to 60% in 2002; Winning the coveted Colorado Ethics in Business Award; The appointment of Horizon Organic executives to leading industry committees include, Chuck Marcy to the Organic Trade Association Board and Kevin O’Rell, Horizon Organics vice president of R&D/Quality Assurance, to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB); and The introduction of numerous groundbreaking products including the first national brand of organic pudding and single-serve flavored organic milk as well as the first ever organic option in the gel snack category with the launch of Horizon Organic Fruit Jels.
Marcy graduated magna cum laude from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA., earning an undergraduate degree in mathematics and economics. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School where he focused on marketing and general management.
Marcy is married and has three children. His active interest in the outdoors makes him right at home in Colorado, and the members of the Marcy family all share a passion for skiing. He is also an avid sports fan, both as participant and as spectator.
Theresa Marquez Theresa Marquez specialty is marketing Natural, Organic and Specialty Foods. Since 1978, she has worked for retail stores, manufacturers, environmental groups, and foundations. Today, Marquez oversees marketing and sales for the largest organic farmers cooperative in the U.S. – CROPP Cooperative and its consumer brand Organic Valley Family of Farms. CROPP consists of over 500 small and mid-size family farmers. The Co-op markets nationally and in Japan over 100 certified organic products: milk, cheese, butter, cultured products, eggs, produce, poultry, beef and pork. Marquez joined the Cooperative as Director of Marketing and Sales in 1994 and has helped to grow the business from $5 million to $150 million projected 2003 sales.
Marquez serves on the Organic Trade Association Board of Directors. She has also served on the Oregon Tilth Certification Advisory Board. She is currently President of a new not for profit organization, The Center for Organic Education and Promotion.
“Agriculture today is in crisis. Factory farming is taking over the rural landscape. Not only does this type of farming destroy rural communities, it is bottom line focused to the detriment of the farmer and the environment. Add the dismal conditions common in confinement operations, our small farmers cooperative represents much needed hope for farming in America.”
Margaret Mellon Margaret Mellon came to the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1993 to direct a new program on agriculture. The program promotes a transition to sustainable agriculture and currently has two main focuses: critically evaluating the use of biotechnology in plant and animal agriculture and assessing animal agriculture’s contribution to the rise of antibiotic-resistant diseases in people.
Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Mellon was the Director of the Biotechnology Policy Center at the National Wildlife Federation. Trained as a scientist and lawyer, Dr. Mellon received both her Ph.D. and J.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. Before joining the National Wildlife Federation, she worked at Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., and the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC. Dr. Mellon is a visiting professor at the Vermont Law School, where she
30 teaches a popular summer course in biotechnology and the law. In 1994, she was honored as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Mellon lectures widely on sustainable agriculture, biotechnology and antibiotic issues and has been a frequent guest on television and radio shows, including The Today Show, Good Morning America and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. Among her recent publications are Hogging It! Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock (2001) co-written with Charles and Karen Lutz Benbrook; Now or Never: Serious New Plans to Save a Natural Pest Control (1998) co-edited with Dr. Jane Rissler; The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops coauthored with Dr. Rissler and published in 1996 by the MIT Press; and a contribution to The Genetic Revolution, Bernard Davis, ed., published in 1991 by the Johns Hopkins University Press. In 2000, Dr. Mellon was appointed to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology.
Founded in 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists is dedicated to responsible public policies at the interface of society and technology.
Linda Meschke Linda Meschke lives on a century family farm in south central Minnesota near the community of Welcome. Ms. Meschke is also Executive Director of the Blue Earth River Basin Initiative (BERBI) a watershed based group working to clean up the Blue Earth River and its tributaries. She brings 15 years of experience working on environmental issues in south central Minnesota to her work with BERBI. Her strong agricultural background brings a different perspective to addressing agricultural pollution issues and has resulted in many successful projects where changes have been made on the land to reduce pollution loading from this region.
Currently, BERBI is working toward changing the corn/soybean cropping system by adding 3rd Crops to the crop rotation. In addition to developing demonstration sites, they are working to establish markets for 3rd Crops with a bio based industrial park concept that includes a sustainability theme, renewable energy electric source and tax free incentives for industry locating there.
Ken Meter Ken Meter, president of Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis, has over 32 years experience working in community self-determination efforts. His groundbreaking study, "Finding Food in Farm Country," documented economic losses suffered in the farm and food economy of seven counties in Southeast Minnesota. Recently, Meter wrote a media guide covering the national emergence of community-based food systems for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. An adviser to Land Stewardship Project and the Minnesota Project, Meter also serves as evaluation consultant to a variety of organizations, including the Northwest Area Foundation's urban and rural initiatives. He also is an economics instructor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. As a journalist, Meter covered the farm credit crisis of the 1980s and international trade issues, filing first-hand reports from 11 foreign nations.
Sue Miller Hurst Sue Miller Hurst is President of the Wholemind Works Company and is the Founding Director of the Starshine Foundation, an international organization dedicated to maximizing human capacity. She has been an advisor to the Center for Organizational Learning at
31 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as a core researcher/ facilitator in the M.I.T. Dialogue Project and also served as a consultant in the Society for Organizational Learning, directed by Peter Senge. Sue consults with Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, Apple, Avaya, Ford, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Northern Telecom, Bank of America, Herman Miller, Monsanto, Honeywell and DuPont on the strategic role of leadership, innovation and systems thinking in creating organizations that learn.
As an architect of large-systems change, Sue works with senior leaders in business, health care, public-policy arenas, state departments and ministries of education internationally. She is a pioneering leader in the global rediscovery of the art and practice of dialogue and conducts a groundbreaking three-day course, “Essential Conversation: The Fundamentals of Dialogue," which is offered to key leaders internationally.
Sue was invited as one of twelve “thought leaders” of the western world to meet with the Aboriginal ngankari, the elders and shaman of the Australian Outback, to think together about the work of leaders at the dawn of a new millennium. She also recently led a millennium dialogue with Mexico’s top industrialists.
Sue is a pioneer in brain/mind research and its applications to learning environments. She wrote The Wholemind Works: Creative Ideas For Doing It All and designed revolutionary mind-compatible learning strategies for learners of all ages. Sue has been a high-school and elementary principal of model schools, director and designer of curriculum, a director of the office of school improvement and community development, director and chief researcher of a federal innovation project, university instructor and author. She has studied law and served as a legislative intern. She created "The Children First” an international model of children helping children.
Envisioning the power of collective thinking, the promise of innovation and the profound possibility of “learning our way out,” Sue designs and produces Come to the Edge, an extraordinary gathering of thoughtful leaders on the leading edge of generative change. In her role as an international spokesperson on learning, Sue inspires individuals and organizations to recognize profound human capacity and the central role of learning in the 21st century. She is currently completing two books: To Begin Again and Ultimate Lessons.
Michael Morrissey Dr. Michael T. Morrissey is Director of the Oregon State University Seafood Laboratory and is a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. He has published numerous articles in seafood processing, quality and waste utilization and has an active research program in innovative technologies for seafood such as high pressure processing. Dr. Morrissey’s accomplishments and professional expertise have been recognized by his peers through various awards such as the Oldfield-Jackman Team Research Award (1996) for Pacific whiting research and the Earl P. McPhee Award (1999) for his contributions to seafood science. Dr. Morrissey has taught seafood science in Mexico and other Latin America countries and has given workshops on various food science topics throughout the world. He has been Editor-in- Chief of the Journal of Aquatic Food Product Technology since 1998 and was elected as an Institute of Food Technologists Fellow in 2003.
Beth Mullen Beth Mullen, who will be turning 18 during the FAS Conference (!), has been working with The Food Project for two years. She is extremely interested in food systems work as well as
32 environmental and social justice issues. Beth will be attending the Darrow School in New York as a post-graduate student this upcoming school year. Her favorite endeavors include activism, singing and music in general, and, of course, working on The Food Project farm! Her goal in life is to create social change.
William Niman Bill Niman has been providing naturally raised beef, pork, and lamb to gourmet restaurants for more than thirty years. A graduate of the University of Minnesota (B.A. Anthropology, 1967), and former teacher, he began raising beef and cattle in 1970 on a ranch in Bolinas, California, that he owned with a friend, journalist Orville Schell. As his reputation for superior-tasting meat spread among discerning chefs, he began marketing it to San Francisco Bay area restaurants under the name Niman Schell. In 1978, Orville Schell published a book, Modern Meat, which the Washington Post called “a marvelously readable account of the drugs, chemicals and assorted garbage being fed to livestock these days.” In contrast the so-called “modern” husbandry methods, Niman Schell raised their animals humanely, with care taken to have livestock lead stress-free lives. As Schell’s journalism career consumed more of his time, Niman bought Schell’s interest, brought in new partners, and began the expansion program that continues today.
Niman Ranch, as the company is now called, has gained a reputation for having the best-tasting beef, pork, and lamb available. The company's reputation has spread largely by word-of-mouth, as chefs share their “secrets” with other chefs. Recently, the press has also begun to pay attention, with feature articles in the Wine Spectator, Art of Eating, New York Times, and San Jose Mercury News, among others, and smaller pieces in Gourmet, Bon Appetit, House & Garden, Cuisine, and other national food journals.
The flavor comes from a combination of factors: • Superior Breeding. Animals are selected for their flavor qualities, not their ability to grow fastest. In beef, that means Angus, Hereford, and English cross-breeds. In pork, that means cross-bred heirloom hogs that can live outdoors, and have plenty of back fat. • Superior Feeding. Animals are fed only natural ingredients such as grains and soy, with no cheap protein sources such as chicken feather meal. Cattle are fed longer than typical feedlot cattle, and are brought into the feedlot slightly older than is typical. Antibiotics are never included in feed, and are only administered in case of illness (and in pork and lamb, they are never administered.) • No artificial growth promotants and no artificial growth hormones are used. Antibiotics are never used as a growth promotant. • Superior husbandry and care. Niman Ranch’s beef, pork, and lamb are raised by farmers and ranchers known personally to Bill and his partners. Niman Ranch’s husbandry protocols are the strictest in the industry, and have been endorsed by the Animal Welfare Institute, which has yet to endorse another meat operation. Animals are treated with respect and care at every stage of their lives. The land upon which they're raised is treated as a sustainable resource.
Bill Niman lives on the original Niman Ranch in Bolinas, California. The company is headquartered in Oakland. Niman Ranch delivers meat daily to restaurants and selected retailers in northern California. It has distributors in New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington and ships direct to restaurants and markets in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Denver, Santa Fe, Miami, and many other locations.
33 Michel Nischan Michel Nischan, born in Illinois, is an Executive Chef, a Board Member of Chef's Collaborative and Sources and Resources. He is known for his strong support of sustainable and organic food systems. At both Heartbeat Restaurant in the W-Hotel in New York City and Mische Mache Restaurant in Connecticut, he featured foods grown locally, sustainably and where feasible, organically. He has hosted a number of events in New York City at the W-Hotel in support of Food and Society Initiatives. He is a founding member of the New American Farmer Initiative (NAFI) which received Kellogg Foundation support in 2002.
Gilbert Perales Gilbert Perales is a Senior at Edcouch Elsa High School. He is currently a Documentarian at the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development.
Christopher Peterson Dr. H. Christopher (Chris) Peterson is the Homer Nowlin Chair of Consumer-Responsive Agriculture and professor of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. Dr. Peterson's mission as the Nowlin Chair is to provide research, teaching, and outreach leadership to university and industry efforts focused on the development and marketing of differentiated, consumer-oriented products based on agricultural goods. In early 2003, he was named Co- Director of the new MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources. The Center will focus on assisting agricultural, food, and natural resource firms in the development of new markets, products, and associated supply chain relationships.
Dr. Peterson works extensively with agribusiness and food firms in the areas of strategic management, agri-food supply chains, product-oriented agricultural marketing, and cooperative strategic and financial management. Since coming to Michigan State University in 1991, he has been involved in strategic management projects for nearly 50 agribusinesses, food processing firms, and commodity associations. Dr. Peterson is a recipient of the 1998 Michigan State University Teacher-Scholar Award and the 1992 Edwin Nourse Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. He currently serves on the board of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association and is an officer of the Agribusiness Economics and Management Section of the American Association of Agricultural Economics. He has served on the board of CoBank (1999-2001) and on the board of the former St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives (1994-1999), both part of Farm Credit System. Dr. Peterson has his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University and his MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.
Rich Pirog Rich Pirog has coordinated education and outreach programs at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University since 1990, and now leads the Center's marketing/food system initiative. Rich has been very involved in food system efforts in Iowa, acting as an advisor to the Governor's Food Policy Council, writing several papers on food system pathways and energy use in the food system, and working on numerous projects designed to help open institutional markets for Iowa producers. Rich is project director of the “Value Chain Partnerships for Sustainable Agriculture” project funded by the Kellogg Foundation, and chair of the steering team for the Pork Niche Market Working Group.
34 Karl Rabago Mr. Rabago is the Sustainability Alliances Leader with Cargill Dow LLC, a company that is commercializing polymer and plastics products made from annually renewable agricultural resources. He joined Cargill Dow in April of 2002 and is responsible for building, maintaining and enhancing business relationships and practices supporting Cargill Dow's pursuit of sustainability in all its business activities.
Prior to joining Cargill Dow, Mr. Rabago worked with the Rocky Mountain Institute, which he joined in October of 1999. Mr. Rabago has broad experience in electric utility industry matters. He serves as a member of the board of the Center for Resource Solutions in San Francisco, and heads the Center's Green Power Board, which oversees the Green-e Renewable Energy Branding Project. He also sits on the governing board of the Center's Green Pricing Accreditation Program, which accredits utility green pricing programs in traditional utility markets. Mr. Rabago sits as Chairman of the Board of the Jicarilla Apache Nation Utility Authority, is past President and Member of the Board of the Texas Ratepayers Organization to Save Energy (Texas R.O.S.E.), and former Chairman of the Board of the Renewable Energy Policy Project/Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies (REPP/CREST).
Mr. Rabago served as a Vice President with CH2M HILL, an engineering and consulting firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado, from 1998 through 1999. Rabago performed comprehensive electric utility restructuring studies for the states of Colorado and Alaska, and provided consulting services to a range of other clients. Prior to joining CH2M HILL, he was Vice President for New Energy Markets with Planergy, Inc., an energy services company. At Planergy, he was responsible for assisting clients in understanding green power marketing issues and competitive strategies for new energy markets.
Mr. Rabago was national Energy Program Manager with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) from March 1996 through January 1998. The Environmental Defense Fund is a leading national non-profit organization representing 300,000 members. Prior to joining EDF, Rabago served in the U.S. Department of Energy as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Utility Technologies and was responsible for the Department's research, development and deployment programs in renewable energy technologies, efficient energy technologies, demand-side management, and integrated resource planning. From 1992 through 1994, Rabago served as a Commissioner with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which regulates electric and telecommunications utilities. Rabago also helped establish and co-chaired the Texas Sustainable Energy Development Council. He served as Vice-Chair of the Energy Conservation Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
From 1990 - 1992, Karl was a law professor in environmental and criminal law at the University of Houston Law Center. Rabago was an officer in the United States Army from 1977 - 1990, during which time he graduated from Airborne and Ranger schools, and served in a variety of assignments, including Armored Cavalry officer, criminal attorney, and Assistant Professor of Law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Karl and his wife Pam are the parents of two sons, Tim and Troy, and a daughter, Kara.
Ladonna Redmond LaDonna Redmond is the President of the Institute for Community Resource Development in Chicago. ICRD is a non profit organization that works on the development and implementation of local food systems in urban communities.
35 ICRD is currently working on the securing vacant lots for urban farming, expanding the local farmers market and building a community owned grocery store. ICRD builds upon the assets of community. The organization motto is that every community has the intellect to heal itself.
Mark Ritchie Mark Ritchie is President of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the founder of Transfair USA and Headwaters Peace Coffee, the first certified Fair Trade coffee companies in America. During the two decades Mark has focused on linking leaders in the agriculture and food industry in the United States with their counterparts in other countries, including spending a year here in Brussels in 1987, networking with European NGOs, businesses, and government officials. During this past year Mark has served on the US Trade Representative's Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee, as vice-chair of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Minnesota, and as the board chair of Growth and Justice. He is currently organizing an International Fair Trade Expo and Symposium for this September in Cancun, Mexico during the upcoming WTO ministerial meeting.
Martin Rivas Martin Rivas is a Senior at Edcouch Elsa High School. He is currently the Technician/Webmaster and Video Coordinator at the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development.
Jo Robinson Jo Robinson is a New York Times bestselling writer who specializes in health and nutrition. She is the co-author/author of ten nationally published books with a combined sales of over 2 million copies. Jo became interested in pastured livestock production while researching The Omega Diet, a book that emphasizes the importance of a healthy balance of fats, including omega-3 fatty acids. When she learned that green plants are a rich source of omega-3s, she began to wonder if grazing animals had more of this healthy fat in their products than grain-fed animals. Her hunch proved to be true. Intrigued by this finding, Jo began a three-year investigation of the many differences between grass-fed and grain-fed animals including their impact on consumer health, animal welfare, the environment, and small farmers. She is the first person to consolidate all this information and provide a comprehensive overview for the public and producers.
Maria Vakulskas Rosmann Maria was raised in Sioux City, Iowa and has a journalism degree from Creighton University. Prior to her marriage, she was a television announcer in Sioux City and was the News Bureau Editor for Creighton University, Omaha. She worked in hospital public relations and after taking time off to raise their sons worked in school development. She works solely with the marketing of Rosmann Family Farms’ products and with her husband Ron. Maria markets their Rosmann Family Farms’ beef, poultry, and pork products to grocery stores in Iowa and Nebraska, for catering in central Iowa and they have numerous private customers who purchase from them on 6-week cycles.
36 Rosmann family Farms is located near Harlan in west central Iowa. Ron, a fourth generation farmer, has worked this land where he was raised since 1973 following graduation from Iowa State University. The farm has had organic certification since 1994 and the beef operation since 1998.
Rosmann Family Farms is 640 acres of corn, oats, tofu soybeans, wheat, rye, barley, turnips, pasture, and hay. There are 90 stock cows, along with the farrow to finish port and poultry operations. Maria and Ron’s sons are David (21), Daniel (19), both Iowa State students; and Mark (17) a junior. Maria and Ron’s goal is to teach their sons as many of the skills involved in farming so they can make an informed response when the time comes to decide if they, too, wish this as a way of life.
Michael Rozyne Michael Rozyne is founder and managing director of Red Tomato, a not-for-profit marketing organization whose purpose is strengthening small family farms, and increasing all peoples' access to and awareness of farm fresh fruits and vegetables, with a strong emphasis on ecologically-grown fruits and vegetables. Red Tomato distributes produce from 40 family farmers to 35 supermarkets in greater metropolitan Boston.
In 1985, he co-founded and served as director of marketing for Equal Exchange, a fair trade cooperative business that trades directly with small farmer coffee cooperatives in Latin America. Equal Exchange employs 50 people, has annual revenues of $10 million, and distributes coast to coast through natural food stores, food co-ops, universities, restaurants, and supermarkets nationwide.
Before Equal Exchange, 1981-1985, Rozyne was head buyer and marketing manager for Northeast Cooperatives in Brattleboro, Vermont, a consumer-owned natural foods wholesaler serving a thousand food co-ops in the greater Northeast. Between 1978-1980, he was marketing manager for Estabrook Farm in Yarmouth, Maine, a diversified vegetable and greenhouse operation.
Gus Schumacher Gus Schumacher, Jr. is the former Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Gus was responsible for the domestic commodities, insurance and farm credit operations of USDA. In addition, he was in charge of USDA's international trade and development programs. Prior to his appointment in August 1997, he was the Administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service for 3 years. Before coming to USDA, Mr. Schumacher served as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture and at the World Bank. From a farm family in Lexington, Massachusetts, Mr. Schumacher attended Harvard College and the London School of Economics and was a Research Associate in Agribusiness at the Harvard Business School.
Meg Scott Phipps Meg Scott Phipps has served as North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Raleigh, NC January 1, 2001 to present. Meg Scott Phipps was born and raised in Haw River, In Alamance County, North Carolina. She has been interested and involved in agriculture her entire life. She grew up working on her father’s (former Governor Bob Scott) dairy farm. She graduated from Wake Forest University and the Campbell University School of
37 Law. She then went to the University of Arkansas School of Law to earn her Masters Degree in Agricultural Law, and then began representing farmers in bankruptcy court. She followed that be becoming an administrative law judge for the State of North Carolina. Meg and husband Robert Phipps, Jr. own and live on the family farm (Melville Farms) where she grew up. They have two children, Margaret and Rob. They raise beef cattle, sell hay and grow field-grown nursery stock. She is an elder and past Sunday school teacher at Hawfields Presbyterian Church.
Don Seville Don Seville is a project manager with Sustainability Institute. Sustainability Institute provides systems based research and consulting to help organizations put sustainability into practice. Don’s work includes workshops on systems thinking, facilitated systems thinking sessions for strategy development, and system dynamics modeling for collaborative learning and policy development. Don received his M.S. in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994 and has worked extensively with the Society for Organizational Learning. He currently lives in a farm based co-housing project that is co-located with the Sustainability Institute.
Shirley Sherrod Shirley Sherrod has served more than 18 years as Georgia Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. In addition to developing several cooperatives in south Georgia she also developed and implemented the Federation’s Outreach and Technical Assistance Program for Limited Resource Farmers.
Shirley serves as the lead person for a value-added vegetable processing facility known as Southern Cooperatives, Inc. (SOCO). This venture is intended to strengthen the financial viability of African American farmers by providing access to mainstream markets that are normally closed to them.
Hunt Shipman Hunt Shipman is the Majority Staff Director of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry of the United States Senate. This is Hunt’s fourth position in the Senate. He previously served as both a legislative aid and a legislative assistant in Senator Thad Cochran’s personal office. Additionally, he served as a professional staff member for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture Rural Development and Related Agencies.
Immediately before assuming his current position, in January 2001, Hunt was an advisor for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services to Secretary of Agriculture, Ann M. Veneman. He later was appointed Deputy Under Secretary of the Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). While at the USDA, he provided general direction of programs administered by the Farm Service Agency, the Commodity Credit Corporation, the Foreign Agriculture Service, the Risk Management Agency and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. These agencies are comprised of over 18,000 employees and administer 34 billion dollars in programs.
Hunt served as USDA’s principle liaison in the development of the 2002 Farm Bill and later was co-chair of USDA’s Farm Bill Implementation Team.
38 Hunt is a native of Dyersburg, Tennessee. He received his bachelor of science degree in agribusiness in May 1992 from Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi, where he served as the graduate assistant to the Dean of Agriculture and Home Economics that same year.
He is a member of the Mississippi State University Hall of Fame and in 1998 he received the university’s Alumni Achievement Award. He is married with three children.
Jac Smit Jac Smit grew up on the edge of town. At age twenty he had worked in five branches of agriculture. He took a junior college degree with a concentration in ornamental horticulture. After a short successful entrepreneurial venture as a landscape designer he was accepted in the Harvard Graduate School of Design and graduated as president of the Harvard Organization of Student Planners.
As the senior Ford Foundation planning advisor to the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Authority he generated an urban agriculture plan for the new port of Haldia and established a self-help urban agriculture project for East Pakistani refugees.
During the next twenty years Jac consulted in half a dozen countries in South Asia, East Africa and the Middle East. He was project manger and chief planner for the largest regional planning projects in each of these regions. All urban regional projects that Jac directed had urban agriculture as a significant component.
In 1991 he was contracted by UNDP and the World Bank to carry out a global survey of urban agriculture which foundationed his best-selling book Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities. Which was launched at the Habitat II Summit in 1996.
In 1992 Jac was the senior founder of The Urban Agriculture Network. This small not-for-profit service organization has the world’s largest urban agriculture library. It is a founding member of the global Support Group for Urban Agriculture [SGUA] and [RUAF] Resource Center for Urban Agriculture and Forestry which has eight information centers on all five continents.
Anim Steel Prior to joining The Food Project as Associate Director last year, Anim was a community development consultant with the Economic Development Assistance Consortium. He has also served as the Coordinator of a new employment program for homeless adults in New York City and as Assistant Director of Admissions at Williams College. Anim holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and was a 1996-97 Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. He is currently helping to coordinate The Food Project’s Urban Office and BLAST initiative.
Steve Stevenson Rural Sociologist, Senior Scientist, and Associate Director of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Steve’s interests include
39 sustainable agriculture and food systems, interdisciplinary research, farm structure, alternative food enterprises, and community development.
Jenney Szeto Jenney Szeto, 15, has been with The Food Project for one year. A 9th grader at the Boston Latin School, she runs track and aspires to be an architect. This summer, she will help to lead a group of 10 teenagers as an Assistant Crew Leader with The Food Project.
Meredith Taylor Meredith Taylor is CFRC's Program Manager for Harlem’s Food System Project. She has been with CFRC since 2001. The project will expand upon the traditional CSA model by using institutional buyers as a financial base for a direct marketing initiative with local farms. Neighborhood soup kitchens and pantries, churches, day care and senior centers, nursing homes, schools, and restaurants are all potential sites for linking local farmers with inner city consumers. Before transitioning to this project Meredith managed the cafeteria component of CookShop®, a nutrition education program, in several Harlem elementary schools, and consulted on a food quality project with New York’s downstate food banks and the State Department of Health. She has a Masters Degree in Food Management and Nutrition from New York University, is a Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Gardener, and a member of both the Society for Nutrition Education, and the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.
Larry Thompson
Mary Tkach Mary Tkach is the Executive Director, Environmental Sustainability for the Aveda Corporation. She has worked on building grassroots and broader community support to help solve environmental challenges for the past 20 years.
Mary joined Aveda in 1998 to help the company institutionalize its environmental sustainability efforts. She is part of the management team and is responsible for developing strategic partnerships and assisting with overall strategic planning for corporate giving, sustainable agriculture, indigenous people’s issues, fair trade and greening the Aveda supply chain.
Mary has traveled to Canada, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil to help Aveda grow its partnerships with its community-based and indigenous suppliers as well as look for additional raw materials. Mary has helped the Aveda network of stores, salons and spas continue Aveda’s history of building effective partnerships with a broad range of environmental activist organizations.
Mary was a Salzburg Fellow in 1991. She has served as a city planning commissioner, a board member of the Family Housing Fund of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and has been a board member of both local and national recycling organizations.
Amy Trubek Amy has been cooking since she was a high school student. Her first job was as a baker in a restaurant in her hometown. She has also been passionate about travel and exploring other
40 places and cultures since she was young. She spent her junior year of college in India, taking courses and traveling extensively
After college, Amy was an apprentice to a chef in a French restaurant and eventually went to Cordon Bleu Cooking School. She then went on to pursue graduate studies in Food & Culture, eventually earning a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1995.
For the past eight years, Amy has taught at New England Culinary Institute. She has created curriculum for culinary students at all levels addressing issues of the global food system and the present state of agriculture in the United States.
Elizabeth Tuckermanty Elizabeth O. Tuckermanty, Ph.D. is National Program Leader for Community Food Systems and currently directs three competitive grant programs; 1). Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, 2.) Community Food Projects and (3.) Innovative Program Approaches for Common Community Problems. Dr. Tuckermanty has worked at USDA for 13 years as National Program Leader in Nutrition, Director of the Plight of Young Children Initiative, Co-Director of the Children, Youth and Families At Risk Initiative and as Program Director for the Fund for Rural America and Small Business Innovation Research Program. Before coming to USDA, she had worked in many other sectors in Washington, D.C. including a management firm, Howard University, the Wheat Industry Council and the National Cancer Institute. She worked as a registered Dietitian in Dayton and Columbus Ohio before moving to Washington. She earned her B.S. at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California and M.S. and Ph.D. at Ohio State University.
Nguyen Van Hanh Dr. Nguyen Van Hanh became head the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in August, 2001. The mission of the ORR is to help refugees, Cuban/Haitian entrants, asylees, and other beneficiaries of our program to establish a new life that is founded on the dignity of economic self-support and encompasses full participation in opportunities which Americans enjoy...
Ph.D. in Economics, University of California, Davis (UCD). Fields of specialization include Public Finance, Economic Development, and International Trade. Earlier, Dr. Nguyen Van Hanh also graduated from the University of Florida, receiving a B.S. (Magna Cum Laude) and M.S. degrees in Agricultural Science.
Over the past decade, Dr. Nguyen Van Hanh has received numerous awards and certificates of appreciation from the California Legislature, the Department of Social Services, joint CSUS- UCD recognition, U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, professional associations and community based non-profit organizations. As a Presidential Appointee, Dr. Nguyen Van Hanh joined the Senior Executive Service of the United States in the Spring of 2002, and has participated in international programs related to ORR.
Arlin Wasserman Arlin Wasserman is a recipient of a national Food and Society Policy Fellowship, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, through which he is exploring new agricultural business models that create value through evoking a “taste of place.” His presentations and articles on the
41 connection between location, flavor and economic development have reached public health professionals, agricultural interests, culinary professionals, policy makers and the popular press.
Mr. Wasserman holds a Master of Science in Natural Resources and a Master of Public Health, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economics, all from the University of Michigan.
Prior to received the Food and Society Policy Fellowship, Mr. Wasserman served as the Policy Director for the Michigan Land Use Institute, where he directed programs on land use, transportation, agriculture, and sustainable economic development. In recent years, his involvement has ranged from developing alternative transportation plans for several northern Michigan communities to work with state lawmakers on a variety of smart growth and public lands management initiatives. Before joining the staff of the Institute, he also was its founding president and currently serves as its Policy Advisor.
Before joining the Michigan Land Use Institute, Mr. Wasserman was a risk management specialist for Environmental Solutions in Traverse City and also the managing member of Site Redevelopment Enterprises, LLC, where he oversaw the development of several northern Michigan foundries and mines. He has been on the staff of several local governments in Michigan including as Solid Waste Manager for Grand Traverse County, Director of Environmental Services for Ypsilanti Township, and Chief Administrator for the City of Ann Arbor’s Recycle Ann Arbor program.
Ali Webb Ali Webb is communications manager for leadership, and food systems and rural development programming at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Ms. Webb manages communication and marketing projects in support of these areas. This includes working with program staff to plan and design activities and products—print, video, and electronic—that communicates the knowledge gained by Foundation-funded projects. Additionally, Ms. Webb develops marketing strategies for targeting program-related products and messages to a wide audience of citizens and policymakers.
Ms. Webb has more than 18 years of communications experience with nonprofit and governmental organizations. Previously, she was director of communications for The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization, where she managed a staff of 17 and had oversight for an award-winning magazine, as well as the web site, media relations, and a video and TV production unit. She also launched an Animal Planet Channel TV show on birding and developed Wild Minutes, a weekly television news feature reaching two million viewers.
Earlier, Ms. Webb served as director of communications for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., where she managed a 150-person staff and a $9 million budget. Prior to that, she worked as associate director for the League of Conservation Voters in Washington D.C. and as press secretary to the then Mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley.
As an instructor, Ms. Webb has taught graduate-level courses at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism at Stanford University in California, and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University.
42 Erik Wells In June 2001, Erik Wells co-founded the Advanced Farm Ecosystems program (AFE) with Dr. John Todd, who was recognized by MIT in 2001 as one (of seven) of the 20th Century’s most influential inventors and innovators in the field of energy and environment. In February 2003, the AFE program was invited to join the Intervale, a non-profit organization in Burlington, Vermont dedicated to diversified agriculture, sustainable ventures and ecological innovation.
Mr. Wells began his pursuit of innovative agriculture at the University of Vermont, where he graduated with a double degree in Agronomy and Environmental Science. He has managed several farm operations and runs an organic pastured poultry cooperative. Mr. Wells has recently expanded his program capacity through the development of two research laboratories and an agricultural Eco-Park to produce value-added foods and fuels from agricultural and food processing byproducts.
Paul Willis Paul Willis is the owner and operator of the Willis Free Range Pig Farm in Thornton, Iowa. Seven years ago Paul met Bill Niman, a beef rancher and president of Niman/Schell, a meat company supplying high end restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shipment of Free Range Pork began, and because of quality and protocol, demand has risen ever since. Niman Ranch Pork Co., and Iowa based company, was formed 1998 with Paul as the manager. The NRPC presently works with 280 farmers. Niman Ranch Pork is marketed nationally and has recently been recognized in the New York Times, Wallace’s Farmer, Gourmet, Wine Spectator, The Iowan, Successful Farming, Vogue, County Living, Bon Appetit, and Food and Wine.
43