ELP Conference: Politics of Food

1609 Connecticut Ave NW #400
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202.332.3320
Fax: 202.332.3327

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Gary L. Comstock
Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University

Gary L. Comstock is 2007-2008 ASC Fellow of the National Humanities Center. Professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University, his research focuses on ethical questions in the biological sciences. Gary is Editor-in-Chief of the OpenSeminar in Research Ethics, and editor of Life Science Ethics (2002) and Is There a Moral Obligation to Save the Family Farm? (1987). Prior to his current position, Gary directed the research and professional ethics program at NC State (2002-2007), and was assistant, associate, and professor of religious studies at Iowa State University (1982-2002). There he produced the popular textbook, Religious Autobiographies (1994, 2003), and won his College's Award for Excellence in Outreach. In addition, Gary established the Bioethics Institute, a faculty development workshop that helped five hundred scientists around the world integrate discussions of ethics into their courses. He is the former president of the Society for Agriculture and Human Values and a popular speaker who has lectured across Europe and in Russia, Israel, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, and Belize. His work has been translated into Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Bulgarian.

Saru Jayaraman
Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United)

Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United), a national restaurant workers' organization, and an Assistant Professor of Public Law in the Political Science at Brooklyn College. In 1992 she founded Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (W.Y.S.E.), a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing young women of color with the resources, information and support necessary to think critically and take leadership in their communities for change. As Attorney/Organizer at the Workplace Project, a Latina/o immigrant worker organizing center, she created The Alliance for Justice, a law and organizing program that organized custodial, factory, and restaurant workers to fight for workplace justice. After 9/11, together with workers from Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, she co-founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), which has organized restaurant workers to win workplace justice campaigns and launch their own cooperatively-owned restaurant. Ms. Jayaraman co-edited The New Urban Immigrant Workforce, (ME Sharpe, 2005). Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Michael Dimock
President, Roots of Change

Michael Dimock is President of Roots of Change (ROC), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization working towards creating a sustainable food system in California by the year 2030. Michael has focused on agriculture and the food system since 1989 and has worked on as a marketing executive in Europe for Riverbend International, a global agribusiness company, and as an organic farmer in Sonoma County. Since the early 1990s, he has been helping communities, NGOs, and businesses build consensus and implement plans related to agricultural policy and marketing, resource stewardship, and sustainability. Michael served as the first Chairman of Slow Food USA from 2002 to 2006 and served on the President's Committee of Slow Food International from 2003 to 2007.

Vandana Shiva
Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy

Vandana Shiva, physicist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocate. Vandana is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. She serves as an ecology advisor to several organizations including the Third World Network and the Asia Pacific People's Environment Network. In 1993 she was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, commonly known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize". A contributing editor to People-Centered Development Forum, she has also written several works include, Staying Alive, The Violence of the Green Revolution, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Monoculutures of the Mind and Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.

Dorothy Supot
Founder and Executive Director of The Carrot Project

Dorothy Suput is the founder and Executive Director of The Carrot Project, a non-profit organization whose mission is to create small-farm financing solutions. She also has been Vice-President of Development for the Conservation Law Foundation, working across five states. Dorothy was Executive Director of the Massachusetts Recycling Coalition during the latter half of the 1990’s, and the Northeast Regional Organizer for the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture before that, working primarily on 1995 Farm Bill issues. Dorothy earned an M.A. in Environmental Policy from Tufts University. She serves on the boards of Red Tomato and the Organic Farming Research Foundation.

Richard Mandelbaum
Social Justice Coordinator of CATA

Richard has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Wesleyan University (1993), and in 1991 conducted an on-site investigation of the impact of the U.S.-led Drug War on indigenous farming communities in Bolivia. Since 1997 Richard began working for CATA (el Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas or Farmworker Support Committee), a grassroots migrant and immigrant farmworkers' organization based in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S. As an organizer for CATA Richard supported unionization campaigns amongst farmworkers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and is one of the principal authors of Toward Social Justice and Economic Equity in the Food System, a comprehensive set of social and economic standards that has been influential in framing the wider debate on just working conditions within sustainable agriculture. The related Agricultural Justice Project, a collaborative multi-organization project, has now entered the implementation stage as a social justice cerification label. From 2001 to 2004, Richard served on the Board of Directors of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, and now serves on the Steering Committee of the Domestic Fair Trade Association. Richard also represents CATA at the United Nations and is an Executive Committee member of the NGO Committee on Migration, addressing international policy that affects migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the U.S. and abroad.

Dianne Moore
Mid-Atlantic Regional Food Coordinator for Health Care Without Harm

Dianne Moore has been the Manager of the Healthy Food in Health Care Program with Women’s Health & Environmental Network for the past two years, and is the Mid-Atlantic Regional Food Coordinator for Health Care Without Harm. Dianne assesses and links Food Service Directors and Purchasers with resources for more sustainable practices and purchasing, such as milk without synthetic hormones, local produce, fair trade products, recycling fryer grease and composting food waste. Her work has successfully resulted in five area hospitals signing the Healthy Food in Healthcare Food Pledge, thereby taking a leading role in hospital food service delivery in the Greater Philadelphia region including southern New Jersey and northern Delaware. She participates in, and facilitates Sustainable Food Roundtables for Health Care, has moderated a panel session for FoodMed 2007, and is currently on the national planning committees for CleanMed 2008, to be held in Pittsburgh, PA May 20-22, 2008, and the Politics of Food Conference, to be held in Raleigh, NC September 22-24, 2008.

Michael Sligh
Director, Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA

Elizabeth Henderson
Peacework Farm

Denise O'Brien
Coordinator, Women, Food and Agriculture Network

Chukou Thao
Executive Director, National Hmong-American Farmers, Inc

Malik Akini

Holly Freishtat
Sustainable Food Specialist/Food and Society Policy Fellow, Cultivate Health, LLC

Larry Mitchell
CEO, American Corn Growers Association

Ted Schettler, MD MPH
Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network

Ted is Science Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. He has a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University, a masters in public health from Harvard University, and practiced medicine in New England for over 30 years . Dr. Schettler is co-author of Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment and In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development. He has published a number of articles on related topics in peer-reviewed journals and has served on advisory committees of the US EPA and National Academy of Sciences.

Jeffrey Ritterman, MD
Kaiser Permanente

Laila Goldberg
Program Manager for Resource and Program Development, The Food Trust

Laila is a project coordinator at The Food Trust, an organization whose mission is to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, nutritious food. Laila joined The Food Trust in 2004 as a project associate for their School Nutrition Program. She currently works on a new initiative to develop a stronger infrastructure for Pennsylvania produce and to ensure that farmers can gain access and better compete in the region's markets. Previously, she worked with Cornell Cooperative Extension's community gardening program in Poughkeepsie, NY and studied abroad in Chile, where she had the opportunity to learn about global food trade through her research of the table grape export industry.

Thomas Forster
International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture

Abby Lindsay
Graduate Student at Tufts University's Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Program

Abby is a graduate student in Tufts University's Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Program. With an environmental science background, she is now exploring ways that society interacts with the environment, looking at the intersection between government policy, economics, culture, and the natural world. Focusing on Latin American environmental policy, Abby is interested in how global policy impacts local livelihoods, such as with trade policy, agriculture, and climate change. While she has studied and worked throughout the Americas, Abby also immerses herself in her local community. In Virginia last year she led a stakeholder roundtable to instigate egional coordination of bikeways. Whether she is planting a garden with kids in the Amazon, connecting Tufts with the community through working at the Lincoln Filene Center, or holding an Environmental Leaders Roundtable at Tufts, Abby enjoys bringing people together to improve the equity and well-being of society through maintaining the environment.

Saulo Araujo
Global Program Assistant, Grassroots International

Saulo has dedicated himself to working for the resource rights of rural and urban communities in Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. In his native country of Brazil, Saulo worked with rural communities in the arid northeast region to develop sustainable water sources and protect local genetic materials. He also worked with water management programs in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. In New England, he has worked with environmental justice groups in inner city neighborhoods, supporting the work of residents to protect open and green spaces, food security and environmental health. Currently, Saulo is a board member of two community-based organizations in Central Massachusetts--Worcester Roots Project and Worcester Earn-a-Bike--and is a member of the Grant-making Committee of the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund (NEGEF). Saulo has a Master's Degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University.

Daniel Moss
Grassroots International

Erin Williams
Communications Director, Factory Farming Campaign, The Humane Society of the United States

Lisandra Lamboy
Campaign Coordinator, Food Trust

Lisandra is corner store campaign coordinator at the Food Trust in Philadelphia. She increases the availability of healthy products in inner-city corner stores and assists store owners to market healthier food alternatives to children. Previously she worked with Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice on the Campaign for Police Reform in the South Bronx where she coordinated youth efforts to inform residents about basic human rights and organized the community against police harassment. She was a research assistant at Public/Private Ventures, an action-based research, public policy and program development organization where she worked with researchers on health, ex-offender reentry, and after-school programming initiatives.

Mari Gallagher
Principal, Mari Gallagher Research Group

Anim Steel
Director of National Programs, The Food Project

Jessica Greenblatt Seeley
Deputy Executive Director, FoodRoutes Network

Jessica is the Deputy Executive Director for the FoodRoutes Network , a national nonprofit organization based in the Arnot, Pennsylvania. Her work involves rebuilding local food systems, mainly through the Buy Fresh Buy Local program, which is over 50 chapters strong across the country. Her previous work with Pennsylvania Certified Organic, a USDA-accredited organic certifier included managing a 350-client certification program, quality management systems, and grant work. Jess has spoken at numerous events, conferences, and workshops, speaking to farmers and educational professionals about agricultural, local food, and certification systems. Farming and the importance of local food systems are prevalent in her every day life ? She lives with her husband on his 4th generation family dairy farm in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. They provide milk, sustainably-raised meats, and dairy products to their local community through the farm?s own on-farm bottling facility, restaurant, and store.

Scott Marlow
Director of Farm Sustainability, Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA

Copper Alverez
Executive Director, Big River Economic & Agricultural Development Alliance

Woody Tasch
Chairman and CEO, Investor's Circle

Eric Becker
Vice President and ELP Senior Fellow, Trillium Asset Management Corporation

Eric is a portfolio manager and research analyst at Trillium Asset Management Corporation, a firm dedicated exclusively, to socially and environmentally responsible investing. He is co-manager of the Green Century Balanced Fund, an environmental mutual fund. Eric's research interests include alternative energy, energy efficiency and green real estate. For over ten years he was the editor of Investing for a Better World, Trillium's investment newsletter. Prior to joining Trillium in 1993, he worked for Cultural Survival, a human rights organization focused on indigenous peoples and the environment. He serves on the advisory boards of The Carrot Project, a start-up non-profit working on sustainable agriculture financing, and Interlock Media, a non-profit human rights and environmental media organization. He recently became an active member of Somerville Climate Action. Eric is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder.

Seth Goldman
Co-Founder and TeaEO, Honest Tea, Inc.

Michelle Lapinski
Founding Principal and ELP Senior Fellow, SustainBiz

Michelle has over a decade of sustainability experience working within and with Fortune 500 companies and their supply chains. She recently founded the SustainBiz consultancy to advise companies on more sustainable business strategies and operations, particularly in food and agricultural supply chains. Previously at Business for Social Responsibility she served as Director of the consulting teams for Food & Agriculture, Consumer Products, and Transportation following her role as Senior Manager, Environment & Climate Change. She also was the Global Environmental Health and Safety Manager at Gap Inc. Michelle holds an M.S. in Environmental Management from the University of San Francisco – where she has served as an Adjunct Professor – and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins. Michelle co-founded the non-profit Young Women Social Entrepreneurs and continues as its National Co-Director.

George Naylor
Farmer & Past President, Family Farm Coalition

Savi Horne
Executive Director, The Land Loss Prevention Project

Sacoby Wilson, MS., PhD.
Assistant Research Professor, Institute for Families in Society University of South Carolina

Sacoby is an environmental health researcher who completed his doctoral degree in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-School of Public Health in June 2005. His dissertation research focused on environmental monitoring and spatiotemporal mapping of atmospheric ammonia levels near human receptor locations and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Eastern North Carolina. He recently began his postdoctoral training with the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. He is receiving training and performing research in population health to examine social and environmental determinants of health and health disparities using GIS, epidemiological and action-oriented CBPR approaches. He also is a member of the research team for the West End Revitalization Association, a community-based organization in Mebane, North Carolina. Sacoby is active in several organizations including the American Public Health Association, North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and NAACP. Sacoby is a former EPA STAR, EPA MAI/GRO, and Thurgood Marshall fellow.

Kyle Stiegert
Director, Food System Research Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Melissa Bailey
PhD Student, Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, Tufts University

Melissa is pursuing her PhD at Tufts in livestock production systems and their impact on the health of water, people and animals located near farm operations. As a "Water and Health" doctoral trainee fellow through the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a candidate to receive a Water: Systems, Science and Society (WSSS) Certificate through Tufts, Melissa is working to integrate the environmental health and agricultural aspects of water science and policy. Her academics have focused her efforts both domestically and in the Central American region through work on watershed assessments and management projects. In addition to academics, Melissa heads up an outreach organization (FEAST: Food Education and Action for Sustainability at Tufts) and is a part-time research analyst for SJH Inc., a Boston-based agribusiness consulting firm.

Rekha Eanni
Restaurant Opportunities Center-NY

Teresa Niedda
Director, Farmworker Health and Safety Institute

Teresa is the director of the Farmworker Health and Safety Institute which is a unique consortium of two community-based farmworker organizations - the Farmworker Support Committee (CATA) and the Farmworker Association of Florida. Teresa has overseen the development and implementation of participatory environmental trainings and documentation tools that develop the leadership capacity of the Institute's member groups. She has served on various state and national pesticide committees voicing the environmental health concerns of farmworkers and was recently appointed by Governor Corzine to serve on the New Jersey Pesticide Control Council. Previously, she has lived and studied in Mexico to better understand and facilitate her work with the farmworker labor force in the United States. Teresa currently resides in Southern New Jersey where she enjoys organic farming, sailing and winemaking.

Jennifer Sparks
Marketing and Community Relations, Whole Foods Market, Greenville

Jennifer is responsible for the marketing and community relations for Whole Foods Market in Upstate, South Carolina, and has been a part of the company's marketing team in the South region for more than 5 years. She works to develop more and new opportunities to educate consumers and the broader community about sustainable, organic, seasonal and local foods through classes, taste events, collateral development, sponsorships, and PR and advertising, all with a special emphasis on promoting local growers and producers. Recently she founded a local convivium of Slow Food USA in Greenville, SC, and works with the nonprofit board to organize educational opportunities around the Slow Food mission of promoting "good, clean and fair" food. On a personal level Jennifer seeks to promote local and sustainable foods and lifestyles by organizing informal and pleasurable dinners and get-togethers with her friends and family.

Rattan Lal
Professor, Ohio State University

Paul Hepperly
Research Director, Rodale Institute

Abe Collins
Carbon Farmers of America

Tracey Giang
Project Manager for the Supermarket Campaign, The Food Trust

Jim Cochran
President, Swanton Berry Farm

William Lockeretz
Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University

Jose Oliva
Workers' Center Network Coordinator, Interfaith Worker Justice

Nancy Creamer
Professor and Director, Center for Environmental Farming Systems, NC State University

Nancy Creamer is a professor in the Department of Horticultural Science and the Director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS). CEFS is an organization working to develop and promote food and farming systems that protect the environment, strengthen local communities, and provide economic opportunities in North Carolina and beyond. Nancy's area of specialization includes farming systems research, organic production systems, and community-based sustainable local food systems. She is involved with several ongoing local food projects including NC Choices, a CEFS initiative which is developing local and sustainable pork production in North Carolina, funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation. Nancy received the Earthwise Award at the 2006 Earth Day celebration at NC State University for outstanding faculty commitment to campus environmental sustainability. She is a member of several organization: USDA Specialty Crops Advisory Committee to the US Secretary of Agriculture; Advisory Council for the Food Systems Leadership Institute, a project of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges; Organic Agriculture Consortium, and the Scientific Committee on Organic Agriculture Research.

Daniel G. De La Torre Ugarte
Associate Director, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of TN

Alexandra Speildoch
Director, Trade and Global Governance Program, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Jennifer M. Hall
Community Builder/Leader, Community Building, LLC/Slow Food Spokane River

Ernesto Velez Bustos
Centro Campesino

Brahm Ahmadi
Co-Founder and Executive Director, The People's Grocery

Michelle R. Worosz, M.S., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University

Michelle's research focuses on agrifood policy and governance. Her interest is in the contestation over the development, interpretation, implementation, surveillance, and enforcement of agrifood statutes and regulations. Her past work was primarily focused on pesticide use regulation. More recently she has concentrated on consumer perceptions of the food safety system; the food safety regulatory barriers to entry into the specialty red meat sector; the statutory and regulatory barriers to marketing alternatively produced beef; and the framing of the debates surrounding recent high profile recalls including leafy greens and the beef from Westland/Hallmark. She is affiliated with the Institute for Food Laws and Regulations at Michigan State University where she assists with, and contributes to, the online course, Codex Alimentarius (The World Food Code), as well as the Food Safety Policy Center, which is also at MSU.

Melina Shannon-DiPietro
Director, Yale Sustainable Food Project

Melina Shannon-DiPietro is a director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project. She came to Yale in 2003 to help the University create the project. She oversees dining services in its transition to a sustainable, seasonal menu, aids in directing the Yale Farm, and works to build a meaningful food culture on campus and in New Haven. Before coming to Yale, Shannon-DiPietro taught at the Maine Coast Semester, and worked as a management consultant with Bain & Company and the Bridgespan Group. Shannon-DiPietro has farmed in Sicily and in Maine. She graduated from Harvard University in 2000 with a degree in Social Studies.

Jose Oliva
Coordinator, Interfaith Worker Justice National Workers' Centers Network

Jose has worked with inner-city Latina high school students teaching electronic media as a means of organizing, through a program he created while directing the Guatemala Radio Project. Jose has conducted a variety of research focused on the Latino community in Chicago at the Midwest Latino Research Center at the University of Illinois in Chicago under the direction of Dr. Aida Giachello. There Jose became Executive Director of Casa Guatemala where he began to organize day-laborers in Chicago's street corners. As a result of his work with Chicago's day-laborers, Jose came across the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues. Currently Jose is Coordinator of the Interfaith Worker Justice National Workers' Centers Network. He has created a program that blends elements of popular education with direct action organizing, with the goal of "allowing workers to shape their own lives". Jose has received the Chicago Fire Hispanic Heroes Award, the Public Allies Tomorrow's Leaders Today Award and served on Illinois Governor Blagojevic's Panel on Workplace Safety.

Jo Robinson
President, Natural Health Network, LLC and Owner/Creator of www.eatwild.com

Jo Robinson is a freelance journalist, educator, and researcher who specializes in the fields of health and nutrition. She is the co-author of 11 popular books with combined sales of over 2.8 million copies. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and workshop presenter on topics such as pasture-based agriculture, weight loss, depression, and nutrition. Jo is also the creator/owner of www.eatwild.com, a website devoted to the benefits of raising livestock on pasture. More than 3.5 million people have visited eatwild.com since its inception in 2001. Currently, more than 5,000 websites link to the site with nearly 6,000 daily visitors.

Oran B. Hesterman
President and Chief Executive Officer, Fair Food Foundation

Dr. Hesterman is the inaugural president and chief executive officer of the Fair Food Foundation. A national leader in sustainable agriculture and food systems, Dr. Hesterman has published more than 400 reports and articles. He played an essential role in the establishment of the Michigan Food Policy Council. Dr. Hesterman has also made significant contributions to the funding of healthy food and farming via his leadership of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders group. As a former farmer and an avid potter, Dr. Hesterman's eclectic and innovative experiences contribute grounded guidance to the new foundation. Prior to coming to the Fair Food Foundation, Dr. Hesterman worked at the Kellogg Foundation for 12 years, where he envisioned and nurtured food system projects, partnerships and collaborations, national and international in scope. He also organized national and international seminars on sustainable agriculture and community-based food systems on behalf of the Kellogg Foundation.

Jennifer M. Hall
Leader, Slow Food Spokane River
Community Food Builder, Community Building LLC

Consistent work with both producers and the culinary community keep Jennifer well-versed in the full continuum of Farm to Table cuisine, forging a closer connection between the source of food and the consumer. As part of the planning committee for the local Slow Food convivium, she organizes events that showcase local food producers and supporters and preserve biodiversity, with outings to area farmers' markets and u-pick farms, hosting educational movies and speakers and tasting, tasting, tasting sustainable, artisanal foods in a variety of settings. Jennifer continues this commitment in her professional pursuits, currently leading the charge to design and open retail food co-op in downtown Spokane, Washington. Click here to read more about Jennifer.

Daniel Gross
Director, Brandworkers International

Daniel Gross is the founding director of Brandworkers International, a new non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees across the supply chain. By empowering workers with social change tools, Brandworkers promotes fairness on the job and challenges corporate misconduct in the community. The Brandworkers Focus on the Food Chain initiative provides legal, advocacy, and organizing support to immigrant food processing workers rising above poverty and abuse.

Jeff Ritterman
Chief of Cardiology, Kaiser Richmond

Jeff Ritterman is chief of cardiology at Kaiser Richmond, where he has worked since 1981. He is Vice President of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. In addition, Jeff advises Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin on health issues. He serves on PEHAB, the Public and Environmental Health Advisory Board, which advises Contra Costa County's Board of Supervisors on matters of public and environmental health.

Holly Freishtat
Sustainable Food Specialist, Cultivate Health LLC

Holly Freishtat, founder and Sustainable Food Specialist at Cultivate Health works with hospitals, schools and other businesses to introduce green food solutions to their facilities. She is the Food Media Coordinator for Health Care Without Harm and works with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility to provide technical assistance to Washington hospitals in procuring sustainable foods. Currently, eight hospitals are implementing the "Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge." Holly is a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow educating consumers, opinion leaders and policymakers on the challenges and opportunities to create a healthy food system in the U.S. She is a national presenter who works with media throughout the US to create awareness about healthy food in healthcare. Previously, as the Agricultural Marketing Director for Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland, she founded the farm to healthcare pilot project that provides healthy, seasonal foods to hospitals and retirement communities while creating new markets for farmers. Holly received her MS from Tufts University in Food Policy: Applied Nutrition in Agriculture, Food and the Environment and is a member of the Hunger, Environment, and Nutrition workgroup of the American Dietetic Association.

Mark Winne

Mark is a co-founder of a number of food and agriculture policy groups including the City of Hartford Food Policy Commission, the Connecticut Food Policy Council, End Hunger Connecticut!, and the national Community Food Security Coalition. He was an organizer and chairman of the Working Lands Alliance, a statewide coalition working to preserve Connecticut's farmland, and is a founder of the Connecticut Farmland Trust. Mark was a member of the United States Delegation to the 2000 World Conference on Food Security in Rome and is a 2001 recipient of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary's Plow Honor Award. From 2002 until 2004, Mark was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a position supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. His first book "Closing the Food Gap -- Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty," published by Beacon Press, will be released in January 2008.

Elizabeth Henderson
Founding Member, Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA)

Elizabeth Henderson farms at Peacework Organic Farm in Wayne County, New York, and has been producing organically grown vegetables for the fresh market for over 25 years. She is a founding member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) in Massachusetts, has been on the Board of Directors of NOFA-NY since 1989, and represents NOFA in the national discussions of organic standards. She chairs the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board in Wayne County, and is a member of the steering committee of the Agricultural Justice Project and helped organize the Domestic Fair Trade Association. In 2007, Abundance Co-op honored her with the "Cooperating for Communities" award. Her writings on organic agriculture appear in The Natural Farmer and the NOFA-NY Food, Farms and Folks, and she is one of the authors of The Real Dirt: Farmers Tell about Organic and Low-Input Practices in the Northeast, lead author of Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 1999, with a new edition in 2007) and wrote A Manual of Whole Farm Planning (2003) with Karl North. With her former farm partner, she wrote A Food Book for a Sustainable Harvest for the members of the Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture Project (GVOCSA).

Upcoming Events

Sustainable Seafood - Sustainable Seas - August 7th
Webinar - 12PM EST

The "Politics of Food" Conference
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