Olivier De Shutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, The Feminization of Farming, drawing attention to the need to empower women farmers and remove the obstacles that hold them back from improving agricultural productivity, nutrition, and incomes. He says that “the most effective strategies to empower women who tend farm and family — and to alleviate hunger in the process — are to remove the obstacles that hinder them from taking charge of their lives.”

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 40 percent of agricultural laborers in developing countries are women – and in some countries, they are as much as 80 percent of the agricultural work force. But women farmers’ yields are roughly 20-30 percent less than male farmers.

If gender barriers were eliminated and women farmers were able to match the yields of male farmers, global malnourishment could be reduced by 12 to 17 percent. And a study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that almost 55 percent of the reduction in hunger from 1970 to 1995 could be attributed to improvements in women’s status in society. In our guest post on Ecoagriculture Parners Landscapes for People, Food, and Nature blog, we highlight how providing better access to credit and inputs can not only improve the livelihoods of women farmers, but translates to better nutrition for their families.

In honor of International Women’s Day, Ellen Gustafson and I want to highlight seven women working to change the food system:

Jeomek Bak
Bak is the Chairperson of the Korean Women Peasants Association. The Korean Women’s Peasant Association (KWPA) is a national organization of women farmers based in Seoul, South Korea. In 2012, Bak accepted the Food Sovereignty Prize, which recognizes the Association for its work “promoting food sovereignty, women’s rights, and the survival of small-scale Korean farmers.” KWPA helped create the National Campaign Task Force, which focuses on defending food sovereignty in  South Korea. In addition, the group organizes training programs, runs the Our Sisters Garden linking women farmers and local consumers, and their Native Seed Campaign focuses on preserving Indigenous seed varieties.

Barbara Buchner
Buchner is a member of the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Advisory Board and is the head of CPI Europe. Her work focuses on international climate finance and market-based mechanisms and other policy approaches to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Her experience is important to Barilla’s research, making sure that agriculture is brought into the discussion of climate change at the international level.

Debra Eschmeyer
Eschmeyer is the co-Founder of FoodCorps and an organic farmer. FoodCorps helps connect kids to the food system by placing leaders in communities for a year. They teach students about  where food comes from and healthy eating habits, and they establish school gardens. Eschmeyer is a recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award and serves on the advisory board of AGree.

Wenonah Hauter
Hauter is the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. Her recent book Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America looks at corporate consolidation of the food system and the impacts on producers and eaters.From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program, focusing on water, food, and energy policy. She was also the environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization’s 30 state-based groups, and she coordinated sustainable energy campaigns at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Saru Jayaramane
Jayaraman is the Director of the Food Labor Research Center and co-Founder of theRestaurant Opportunities Centers United. In the book, Behind the Kitchen Door, Jayaraman and co-author Eric Schlosser, highlight the need for foodies to recognize that sustainable food is not just about eating local or organic–a truly sustainable restaurant is one in which wait staff and cooks are treated fairly and make a living wage, and where workers and eaters alike have a positive experience.

Sophia Murphy
Murphy is a Senior Advisor for the Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policy. Her work focuses on U.S. trade and agricultural policy and the impact of trade rules on farmers in developing countries. She has also written about the impacts of international trade on development and food security, corporate concentration in the food system, the affect of biofuels on poverty, and the impact of aid programs.

Lindiwe Sibanda
Sibanda is the Chief Executive Officer of the Food and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) based in Pretoria, South Africa. Sibanda has led FANRPAN’s development strategy and is currently coordinating policy research and advocacy programs in Africa to improve food security in the region. In addition, she is Board Chair of the International Livestock Research Institute and she’s part of the Guardian Global Development advisory panel. Sibanda also led the No Agriculture, No Deal global campaign in 2009 to advocate for the inclusion of agriculture in the United Nations Framework on Climate Change in Copenhagen.

Who are you celebrating this International Women’s Day?

What issues have you been focused on?

Women, Food and Agriculture Network provides information for all women involved in healthy food and farming to connect, learn and become empowered to act in their communities. We exist as a network for women because 15 years ago, when we started, there was no Midwest network of women farmers. Now we have members nationwide , and try to keep our members aware of federal funding opportunities and policy. We exist for social support and skills sharing but also for policy work.

What inspires you to do this work?

Originally my inspiration came from two places. I grew up on a conventional farm in Iowa; my father was an outdoorsman and was very careful with his land. I learned about careful farming from him and a love of the outdoors. So I was always interested in the environment. As I’ve become a mom and more aware as a consumer, I’ve seen a link between heath and food, and heath and the environment. It’s a natural link for me to support people who support that.

I am a feminist. I totally embrace it. Opportunities for women in whatever field they prefer should be there and I love working toward that in agriculture.

What’s your overall vision?

That what’s now considered alternative agriculture becomes mainstream. I believe we can have healthy agriculture and a healthy environment and feed people. There is no reason why we can’t feed the planet. It can feed itself using healthy farming methods and in fact it’s the only way we can feed the world. Women must become more involved in creating more systems in the world. The more women have power in creating systems that work, the more things will change for the better.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I love to check in on Grist and Civil Eats, Huffington Post food pages, those are the three main ones. I’ve really enjoyed Michael Pollan’s work and he’s done a great job of popularizing the movement. I love anything by Barbara Kingsolver. I really liked Temra Costa’s Farmer Jane book last year. I’m also an unabashed crime novel reader too.

Who’s in your community?

My professional community exists in the groups of women who are farming, landowners and advocates all over from Europe to the U.S. In particular, the women who work in other networks:

The Women’s Agricultural Networks (WaGNs) in Vermont , Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

The League of Women Farmers in Southern Oregon. Networks of women are popping up everywhere who are ready for activism training and leadership development.

What are your commitments?

I have two sons, one a college freshman in Portland, the other a sophomore in high school, Richard and David. My husband Ed works at Iowa State University. Family is my first priority. Regarding work, I really want to leave a legacy here of a successful organization. Coming up on five years we’ve grown from 300 to 3,000 and funding has increased almost 10-fold. I’d like to see that growth continue. Staying balanced and sane too. Funny that comes third…

What are your goals?

For WFAN it’s to keep it growing and to continue to ramp up advocacy and leadership training on a national level. We want to find the dollars to prioritize our leadership development program, Plate to Politics. Another goal is to find a way for me to continue to contribute to this work and step aside for the next leader. I’m in my early 50s and I’m ready when the time comes to make a transition smooth and positive. The new leader will have the skill set we need to take it to the next level.

What does change look like to you?

Public opinion has a lot to do with change. I particular with institutional systems like agriculture and food, change looks like more people understanding the connection between food systems and health and ecology and health. But it’s a big ship to turn. There are big interests that want to take financial advantage of this turn and like any big change those that have a financial stake will continue to find a way to keep that. Like Monsanto finding a way to have patents on organic ag. Change means making sure that the people take control of their power, by being aware of what U.S. corporations are doing to the detriment of their health. Change means they make sure they speak up. We need to continue to monitor corporations and stay vigilant so their power doesn’t dominate. As in any capitalist society, change is an educated public aware of social issues, people who stay informed and continue to care and act. The danger is that all the decisions we make are based on money.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

Again the key piece for our work is Plate to Politics as ag is probably the most policy dictated sector of our economy. Policy dictates what gets grown, where it’s grown, how much people get paid, and it’s often driven by corporate interests. We have to make sure the public good is protected. So all of us as individuals need to get educated and support the kind of food systems we need to see.  Our outreach has to focus on educating women on what’s happening in their communities and supporting them to help digest policy language and chopping it up into bite-sized pieces. We teach them how they can do good on a mom schedule. I think when more women’s voices are heard, more policy will change for the better. Women are more community minded, they are better negotiators—this is gender-based research—women are more likely to reach across party lines, reach compromise and be effective leaders in many ways.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

We have three programs: Plate to Politics, Women Caring for the Land, and Harvesting our Potential which is our work with aspiring and beginning women farmers. We just received a grant to expand that in Iowa and Nebraska. We’ll be doing some structured networking, business planning for career exploration and more detailed week-long classes for women who already have farms. A key piece that’s been missing is training the mentor famers. We will give them training to understand labor law, how to teach, workers’ comp, conflict management, etc. We’ve had a cohort of women who’ve been hosting apprentices for years and doing a really fine job but they’ve had to learn this on the fly, so we want to teach them how to minimize their risk. We’re adapting the Cultivating Success training program which we’ve found to be the best, so the author, Diane Green will help teach that and spread that curriculum in the Midwest.

We’re also hosting the 4^th national conference for women in sustainable agriculture “Cultivating Our Food, Farms and Future,”  Nov 6-8 in Des Moines, IA. You can learn more about it at our website, www.wfan.org.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

Food Corps is phenomenal.

I’m a huge ATTRA fan, everything they do is awesome.

I love the Worldwatch Institute. I saw their list of 25 women changing the environment.

Environmental Working Group.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility? 

Obviously it’s always a real possibility. Currently I’m worried there’s no new Farm Bill. The fact there isn’t one is a symptom of something that I can’t foresee getting better in the next five years—interparty ideological and money issues on the federal level. Instead of working through compromise they say “I quit.” Now that the election is behind us we’ll see what happens.

At the local level it’s exciting to me that communities of all sizes are creating food and farm plans, that they are setting aside spaces for urban gardens and farmers’ markets and paying attention to food in that way. A county here is incentivizing transition to organic with tax breaks.

In terms of the focus of WFAN, there’s now a record number of women in Congress. It’s sad that it’s so low but good that it’s a record. In the census it’s fabulous that women are growing as farmers; women are entering ag and changing it. That of those areas give me the greatest sense of hope; having those women farming and promoting healthy food systems in their communities.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

Money would be helpful. I’m really heartened by all the private foundations giving to sustainable agriculture. There’s an interesting debate about whether or not to take Walton Family Foundation money but just the fact that Walmart is investing in helping women of color, particular in the Delta states to help get products into their stores is great. Resources are vital. Continuing to work in collaboration; we have to collaborate because resources are scarce. We need to collaborate in a smart way, locally and federally and to present a fairly united front in some key areas.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

A beautiful locally grown pork tenderloin, braised in my husband’s home brewed beer served with a bunch of diced locally raised winter vegetables.

Adam Brock is an urban permaculturalist currently serving as Director of Operations at The GrowHaus, a nonprofit food justice center based in a half-acre greenhouse in Colorado’s most polluted zip code. He is a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in Ecological Design and has been active as an urban agriculture practitioner and advocate since 2008. Adam is a member of Denver’s Sustainable Food Policy Council and collaborates with numerous sustainability- and social justice-oriented groups in the Denver area.

Adam’s passion for permaculture design extends into creative endeavors, including a sincere effort to create a regionalized cuisine in Colorado and work with hip hop artists to communicate good food ideas.

What issues have you been focused on?

Our work at The GrowHaus is about creating a hub for new ways of relating to our food, particularly in our neighborhood where the food system is pretty much broken. We believe in a holistic model that tackles food production, food distribution and food education simultaneously to rebuild our food system from the ground up.

Permaculture is a big part of our mission and organizational culture – we teach permaculture classes for all kinds of people, and it informs everything from how we grow food to how we relate to our neighbors.

What inspires you to do this work?

What keeps me excited is seeing firsthand the change we’re making in people’s lives – especially young people. We’ve worked with some of the same neighbors for years; we’ve seen people take on cooking and permaculture as a career path and watched it become a core part of who they are and how they want to transform their communities.

Even on a one-time basis, there’s an amazing transformation that takes place with the school groups in our service learning workshops. When they come in, they may be skeptical, but then they taste lettuce out of our aquaponics system for the first time and you can see the change happen right in front of you. Once they get to work, they get right into it and leave inspired.

What’s your overall vision?

At The GrowHaus, we say it’s about creating communities where everyone has the means to nourish themselves. We take that literally – people being able to feed themselves – but we also see it as empowering people to express themselves and their culture fully, to have meaningful employment related to what they love.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

One of my permaculture mentors, Peter Bane, came out with a book called The Permaculture Handbook just last year. It’s a great guide to implementing permaculture design practices in urban and suburban areas.

The Empowerment Manual by Starhawk has also been inspiring to me recently. It’s about applying permaculture ideas to working with collaborative groups.

On the fiction tip, The Wind-Up Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi is a fascinating sci-fi book that explores what happens to people after the oil contraction, after people get back on their feet in Bangkok in the year 2200.

Who’s in your community?

I try to think of my community in the broadest way possible. Living in a diverse place like Denver, I try to make connections among all the different kinds of people that live here. Two very different but close communities to me are the rural farmers in the High Plains Food Co-op and a community of spoken-word and hip-hop artists in town who make sustainable food accessible to folks who wouldn’t read a blog or download a TedTalk.

What are your commitments?

I think of it in terms of the ethics of permaculture: Take care of your eco-system, take care of the people in your community, and re-invest the surplus you have (time, energy or money) into the health of the first two things. I let those ethics drive my work and hold me accountable. They help me walk the talk.

What are your goals?

At The GrowHaus, we’re working on finishing up our commercial aquaponics system, one of the largest in Colorado. We also just got a USDA grant to create a weekly food box program to get healthy food to people in the neighborhood at an affordable price.

Another goal I have personally is to take the local food concept to the next level with what I call “bioregional cuisine.” Here in Denver, we’re in an almost desert, so I’d love to see us create a food culture that embraces foods which actually make sense to grow here. In a couple generations, I could see species like quinoa, sorrel, bison, currants, or Jerusalem artichoke really forming the basis of our diets here.

What does change look like to you?

Ultimately, I feel like I’m helping to create a society that actively restores soil quality and bio-diversity by just going about its business. It means re-organizing our physical structures like transportation, as well as invisible structures like our political and economic systems. It means embracing our culture and sense of place. And it means adopting culturally-appropriate diets rather than pretending we live somewhere like California.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

It’s important to think big and start small, doing what you know you can accomplish with the resources you have and the people with whom you’re connected. You’ve got to deeply understand your community – let go of your ego and really listen to what people need. Then, use the skills you have to deliver on that need. One strategy that I’ve found helpful is cultivating cultural translators – people who can take ideas that may not immediately relate to someone and communicate them in a way that speaks to where they are, in a way they feel comfortable with.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

The GrowHaus is just one part of an eco-system of amazing work happening here in Denver. There’s Colorado Aquaponics, whom we helped incubate as a small business years ago and is now a national leader in this technology.

I teach every year at The Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute, where they are growing tropical plants in greenhouses above 7200 feet with low-tech solutions and no fossil fuels.

There’s also a great group here in Denver called Going Green Living Bling who make eco-conscious hip hop. They take the message to schools all over town and get kids interested in gardening and eating right.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

One of the projects I’ve always admired is Planting Justice. They do a lot of work in the East Bay and work with residents there and inmates in Oakland. They’ve come up with an amazing model combining urban agriculture and social justice.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

Yeah, I think so, but we’re not quite there yet. Obviously Prop 37 was a real bellweather. It showed there’s a lot of public support, but it seems like we don’t have the bucks we need to fight the misinformation out there. I’m sure a lot of people are learning lessons on how that went down. I’m not too much of a policy person but I can see from the sidelines that we’re coming really close to influencing how our country makes decisions that impact the food system.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

I think it just needs to keep doing what it’s doing. Every time I went to a CFSC conference I was always humbled by the incredible work happening all over the country. I would go thinking I had some new insight to share and then I would meet all kinds of people who were three or four steps ahead. There are thousands of us involved in this movement in a grassroots way – the next step is joining forces and showing the rest of the country that we mean business.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Well, the Thanksgiving meal I just ate with my housemates was pretty tough to beat. We ate tilapia from our aquaponics system, lettuce from The GrowHaus and fresh berries, a few pies. It was pretty great.

Denise O’Brien is a farmer and community organizer from Atlantic, Iowa. She has farmed with her husband, Larry Harris, for 37 years in the southwest of the state and maintains 16 acres of fruit and vegetable production. Denise also raises turkeys and chickens for market.

For over 30 years Denise has helped develop agriculture policy on the state, national and international level working specifically on local food systems and conservation issues. She is the founder of Women Food and Agriculture Network and recently returned home after a year working as an USDA agriculture adviser in Afghanistan.

Denise has spent years as an activist farmer, raising children and crops, milking cows and being politically engaged. Now, she wants to restore prairie, save seeds, support women landowners and encourage the next generation of women activists.

What issues have you been focused on?

I’ve been an organic farmer now for 37 years. My whole focus for almost all those years has been dreaming about a better world and better agriculture. I didn’t grow up a farmer; I married one. There was something in me that was drawn to working the land. I was born with genes or something that steered me towards farming. For the years I’ve farmed it’s been about taking care of mother earth and leaving her in better condition. I’ve learned most everything about farming from my husband and during the time of learning I was always drawn towards the fact that women don’t take credit for what they do in a farming situation. I’m talking about the older generation of women who were raised on farms and know all about farming like men but always defer to the man and say they are just a “farmer’s wife.”

So my focus, while it’s been organics and local food, always comes around to women’s role on a local, state and international level. If women had a seat at the agriculture decision making table, the landscape would look differently.

There’s been an emerging issue of women’s land ownership. In the Midwest they own at least 50 percent of the land, most of that is rentable farmland. Who makes the decisions? So we started helping women dream about what to do with their land.

What inspires you to do this work?

To encourage women to talk about their ties to the land in a setting where men aren’t always included. There is a real need for that. Internationally 55-95 percent of the world’s food is grown by women. I wanted to dig in and see what women are doing because they are underrepresented; much more involved than what they get credit for, especially in the US. I’ve always been about quality and equity. I’m one of those people who looks at organization’s Boards of Directors or corporations or non-profits to see what percentage are women and it’s consistently negligible.

What’s your overall vision?

That the landscape changes. Women would take responsibility for the assets they own, the farmland, and make decisions based on their own dreams. Women want natural resource and conservation management and families on their land. If women’s voices were heard we’d have a different landscape; buffer zones, there would be less soil loss, more families on the land. Here in the Midwest where industrial agriculture rules, I keep thinking “wow, this would just look so different if women were in charge.”

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I just got done reading are Gathering by Diane Wheelie who started Seed Savers with her husband. It was really inspiring. We come from the same generation and have had similar experiences. Another book is The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food,and Love written from the point of view of an urban women who falls in love a farmer and takes a journey with him.

As a consequence of reading those books I’ve focused in on what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’ll be 63 soon and have had the great privilege to be a farmer. I want to finish my life out with a dedication to women in agriculture, restoring prairie and seed saving.

Who’s in your community?

I’m real isolated in my physical community and what draws me is that I grew up here. There’s a generation of people that I really admire. My broader community of women activists moves me. Joan Gusow has been amazing for food and nutrition guidance. Women like Kathy Ozer, Executive Director of the National Family Farm Coalition. She has worked diligently for years with unbelievable dedication to family farmers. Local women, women in Iowa, that have meant a lot to me, like Mary Swallow Holmes with conservation, Jean Eels a county soil commissioner, Laura Krouse and Susan Jutz who are single women farmers. The people most endearing to me are in my mother-in-law’s generation; they worked tirelessly with no recognition. I look at them with them with respect and admiration.

What are your commitments?

To write a book. I feel responsible to tell my story because it’s been a pretty incredible life. Through all of these years of activism I have raised children and crops, milked cows and have been politically engaged. I’ve been privileged to travel the world; I’ve been in the presence of Presidents and celebrities and I feel strongly that we can grab life by its fullness. My commitment is to pass that on to younger women who are farming or food processing or even my daughters who didn’t stay on the farm but are interested in cooking, eating and having good food.

To encourage and be the cheerleader for future generations of girls and women activists; not to ignore the boys and men, but they have a leg up and they were born with that. You have to stand up for what you believe in and you can’t expect the world to change without your one’s own effort.

What are your goals?

On my farm: to build a high tunnel to grow crops to market. To restore prairie; ninety-eight percent of Iowa was prairie but now it’s more like two percent. To write this book to engage women starting out and that need encouragement. To draw out those women who own the land now and to encourage them to make decisions about the legacy of their land. Finally, to impact change in the monoculture of corn and soybeans. To change the landscape of my state to a more regenerative caring for the land.

What does change look like to you?

A physical change in the landscape. If you took an aerial flight, the land would be greener than it is now. Cover corps would be on the land, we would lose less soil due to erosion. There would be animals on the land where they should be not in buildings isolated from their natural place. The image we get of agriculture as we grow up with the barn, the farmer, it would be that image mixed with farmer Jane and equality; contemporary ideas and progressive issues attached.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

The outreach is to the consumer and to those who are interested in raising a nation of healthy, smart children. All people should have access to good, nutritious food. There needs to be policy change to make permanent change. Policy plays a role in all of this. We need to run for political office or support those who are willing to run to make the change.

Awareness needs to be built. People have to take on an active role in changing policy, having local food policy councils, and living the change you want. It is not to our benefit to concentrate our work as individuals–we must work in community. The power needs to be taken away from the monied people and corporations who have strongly influenced laws in their favor. This is not an easy task.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

Navigating the Waters: Women, Food,and Agriculture Network has received funding to do work with women on water and wetland issues. I will facilitate some meetings looking at watersheds.

Another WFAN project is Women Caring for the Land. This is the empowerment work with women landowners.

Pesticide Action Network. I’ve recently joined the Board. PAN can help bring life to another vision; having teams of people monitoring the air and water where we live since industrial agriculture has become king. Gathering scientific evidence that can help us understand how chemical agriculture affects our health.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

Pesticide Action Network does impressive stuff. I always have my eye on the beginning farmer work that many organizations are initiating. The Greenhorns are wonderful; Severin and the crew of young upstarts are out there doing great innovative work. Dave Murphy and Lisa Stokes continue to needle people with Food Democracy Now and the Occupy movement.

Almost everything that interests me is in how we can revitalize and regenerate the degradation that’s happened to our land.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

In the 1990s when we started work on local food and organics we asked ourselves is this a trend, or a fad or is this for real? Now it’s mainstream in many ways even in Iowa. But we have to be ever vigilant of cooptation There are many, not enough yet, attacking the corporate domination of agriculture. Corporate ag is fighting back. They continue to portray farming with the pastoral images we grow up with. The fantasy of farming. Corporations own Congress so they just pay for influence. We need to continue working on good food, healthy soil, healthy kids and we’ll have to do work on all fronts, policy, raising awareness, and farming. In all the 30 years I’ve been involved someone is always trying to co-opt what we’re doing because we’re on the right path. It’s about justice! We have to bring the truth to light!

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

The bottom line is we have to have good funding so people can lead organizations. People like myself need to pass on our historical perspective our institutional knowledge. Those of us who hold the history need to communicate it to people who are taking over the movement and be open to new ideas and ways of doing things. The “elders” of the food movement need to step back and encourage new leadership. We have to understand that things change and are being done in different ways as new leaders and greater diversity enters the scene. We don’t need to exit but be there as mentors and advisors. Let things happen as they may. The movement is just a toddler.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

I would like the vegetables that are growing in the garden in the Midwest summer as we transition into Fall. A simple garden meal, eating things just as they are, a nice mix of fruits and vegetables fresh out of my garden.

At a time when our nation’s family dairy farmers are in jeopardy of losing their farms and the independent dairy industry is in a state of volatility due to the price of milk paid to farmers, higher feed costs, corporate consolidation in the supply chain–and what many believe is a flawed pricing strategy–it was a huge loss when on August 7, 2012, Bryan Wolfe, a dairy farmer and activist, was tragically killed working his haybine on his farm in Rome Township, Ohio. He was 55.

According to Arden Tewksbury, Manager of the Progressive Agriculture Organization (Pro-Ag), Bryan was a well-known and respected dairy farmer activist who continually worked to obtain a fair price for all dairy farmers. He felt very strongly that a cost of production formula should be developed (like S-1640; the Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act) to ensure all dairy farmers would have a fair chance to survive this RAT RACE that many dairy farmers are experiencing.

An obituary in Ashtabula, Ohio’s Star Beacon stated Wolfe’s incredible career in both farming and activism: “Bryan was a Dairy Farmer all his life and owned and operated Maple Lane Farms in Rome, Ohio since 1980 with his wife. His passion for farming went well beyond the boundaries of his home farm and he was an avid farming activist, who served with many organizations to be a voice for the family farms over his lifetime. 

Among his involvement in such organizations: Vice President of the Ohio Farmers Union for four years. President of the Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula County Farmers Union for 12 years. He was a member of The National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) for 10 years and served on the Executive Committee, Dairy Sub Committee, and Chaired the Credit Committee.

 He also spent 10 years with the Family Farm Defenders.”

Wolfe was also an active member of Pro-Ag and the American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association. According to Pro-Ag officials, Wolfe had developed a very workable relationship with Representative Steve LaTourette from Ohio, with meetings set up regarding amendments to the 2012 Farm Bill.

“Bryan tried passionately to change the federal polices that have been destroying dairy farmers and their rural communities since they were first implemented in 1981,” said Brenda Cochran, fellow Pro-Ag member, dairy activist and Bryan’s dear friend. “He made a personal commitment to see justice done for dairy farmers, never sparing himself in the effort to do so, whether it required long distance traveling to special meetings and federal hearings, making endless phone calls, contacting politicians, or reaching out to other farmers to get their support for whatever project he was working on, all the while struggling to keep everything going on his own farm with his wife Diane.”

His final project in this effort was completion of the paper he wrote for Representative Steven LaTourette in late June. The paper, called “Time for Real Change: Overview of the Challenges Threatening American Dairy Farmers and the Role Government Must Play to Correct These Inequities” is being called “Bryan Wolfe’s ‘White Paper,’” and it has been very well received. Said Cochran: “Many of us who worked with Bryan so closely over the years know that this paper embodies Bryan’s beliefs about dairy farmers, consumers’ rights to access fresh, unadulterated, local milk and dairy products, and the federal government’s role in the dairy farmer crisis and what must be done to correct the injustices overwhelming dairy farming families everywhere.”

At the heart of the matter is a reform to the current federal raw milk pricing formula that currently does not include the dairy farmers’ cost of production.

As described in a letter to Congress written by Gretchen Main, a dairy farmer from Waterville, NY, the cost of milk sold on the market is unsustainable when compared to increased cost of feed and other farm costs necessary to producing milk; making the prospect of independent dairy farming unrealistic.

“Our advance check used to pay the feed bill, the phone bill, and the truck insurance,” said Main. “This past year it has barely covered the feed bill. In July it was $1,200 short of covering just the feed bill. I have a friend who milks 250 cows and their milk check was $6,000 short to pay their feed bill.”

Pro-Ag officials say it’s up to all of them now to work with Bryan’s associates in Ohio to help fulfill his efforts to obtain a dairy bill that would allow dairy farmers to cover their cost of production plus a reasonable profit.

“We really do not want to be a welfare class, but are pushed into it by a government pricing system that guarantees the processors a cost of production, but not the farmers who produce the milk,” said Main.

Some progressive dairy farmers have suggested they unite efforts to obtain what Wolfe wanted for all dairy farmers: To return profitability to family dairy farmers by helping them get a fair price without any form of a government subsidy. Some suggested actions that consumers and dairy farmers alike can take:

1. Support a milk pricing formula that would be based on the national average cost of producing milk.
2. Support a milk supply management program that would be implemented only when needed.
3. Urge Congress to reject the proposed insurance program that has passed the U.S. Senate.
4. Ask that a thorough study be made of the safety of milk protein concentrate and whey protein concentrate.
5. Request an end to the unnecessary imports of dairy products (especially milk protein concentrate, known as “MPC”).

This is quite a list, however if we want to our family dairy farms to succeed and Wolfe’s death to not have been in vain, it is up to dairy farmers, activists and consumers alike to take a stand for the healthy and sustainable milk supply we all want.

Main’s message is clear, we are at the cusp of potentially losing ground on the rural foundation of the American food system. “We just can’t keep up when your input costs keep going up and there is no way that you can get your cost of production, much less make any profit with the flawed pricing system that we have,” she said. “At one time there were 18 farms on this road. There was more milk produced here than in all the rest of the county. Fourteen farms on my road are gone. Two of us might sell out and one sold 35 cows just to keep going.”

Ben Taylor, son of legends James Taylor and Carly Simon, has roots as deep in the soil as he does in music, and he uses the stage as a way to spread awareness about local agriculture. He is an avid supporter of the Island Grown Initiative, a multi-faceted project based in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts that sponsors its own farm-to-school program, organizes a cadre of volunteer gleaners to harvest crops that would otherwise go to waste, educates beekeepers, and provides processing facilities for local poultry farmers.

Having heard about the program from his cousin Noli Taylor, Island Grown Schools’ Program Coordinator, Ben noted that the organization “tickled his fancy” for promoting a strong sense of connectedness within the community to the place they call home. Civil Eats recently spoke to Ben about his involvement in good food issues.

As a musician, how did you become involved with issues regarding food and agriculture?

Before I wanted to be a musician, I was looking for anything else that I could do. I’d been on a lot of wilderness excursions and I loved being in nature. When I first moved out of my home as a teenager, I went to New Mexico and worked on an organic farm out on San Juan Pueblo and that was just really cool. The guy that I worked for was this incredible natural mystic and I developed a profound respect [for him] and a different idea of what it meant to be a gardener.

What trajectory has your involvement taken since then?

What it inspired in me was a call to action socially and politically, so I try to help generate awareness when I find people in different locales doing great things and setting good examples. There’s a company called Island Grown Initiative which I raise money for and with which I work, and they run organic gardens and greenhouses and schools on island [in Martha's Vineyard] where I’ve lived for over a decade. For the kids, the program is part of their education and they [use it to] grow food for the cafeteria. That’s really an incredible project. I think that where I can be the most helpful is in using my music to generate awareness for good. The reason I feel so strongly about it is mostly because I’m fond of nutrition and I think that the way that we generally see it is without consideration of the spirit. I believe that there’s a huge spiritual component to nutrition and I think that’s one of the biggest points that we’re missing in terms of the disconnection from our hunger.

What are the primary issues you focus on?

Local autonomy, primarily in agriculture because I like to grow food and I like farmers. But in every way, I want to fight for people to have independent businesses and communities, to rely less upon outsourcing in general. In some ways, I feel like it doesn’t make that much sense preaching to people like me because we get it. As much as I love local businesses and am against multi-national globalization, I’m also really grateful to companies like Walmart because they’ve actually introduced the concept of “organic” to way more people than could have been reached as quickly by conventional, independent grassroots means. The actual problem and solution are both broader than I could wrap my head around, and there’s always give and take, good and bad in anything. That’s why I like to focus on the microcosmic level as much as I can.

What are your goals for your work?

Primarily, I want to make a difference in music education. I want to use the skills I’ve spent a lifetime developing first to inspire kids to want to be musicians and second, to help schools and states build extracurricular music programs. That’s my primary goal in life. But in the meantime, I want to help the people in my community have a better quality of life. One of the things that I think is the most important in that is healthy food and proper nutrition. On a complete level, not just on a physical level but on a spiritual level where you understand where your food is coming from. That’s so important that, at least the people in my community, I don’t think we can afford to pay whatever the 75 or 80 percent of our food that goes into the transportation of it. We can’t afford the compromise in the quality of the food that happens.

What other projects does the IGI run?

They do an island gleaning program. A lot of the farmers on the island don’t have enough people to do their harvesting for them. There’s a lot of produce that grows on different people’s land [that doesn't get harvested]. So the Island Grown Initiative started this process where local gardeners and farmers sign up to tell which days are going to be optimal for harvest. A couple of days a week, kids from the [Island Grown School] and a bunch of volunteers from the community get together and go help those people with the harvesting and they bring it back to the schools or other community organizations. It’s a great idea because when people are evaluating how much food there realistically is in the community, they don’t take that proportion of it into consideration.

What groups, projects, or individuals inspire you in the work that you do?

I like urban community garden projects. Really anything that brings people together around agriculture. I think that ideas people have about farming in general is outdated and antiquated and not cool. Where I live, the farmers and people who grow food are the coolest people around because they’re actually providing for the rest of the community. I may want to start an organization to promote the sexiness of gardening [and farming]. That’s the place where I’ve been working the hardest in my community. Sometimes I’ll go to towns where it will work out well that I can cross-promote my music and a local charity, but in that case I don’t have the opportunity to get as involved with those organizations and how they work specifically.

Who is in your community?

Almost all of my family lives on the same little island that I do. All my cousins and their kids, my sister and her husband and their kids, aunts and uncles. Then we’ve a lot of gardeners, landscapers, and people in the construction business. I think generally speaking, because of the fact it’s becoming more lucrative and people are getting more conscious about it, most of those industries on Martha’s Vineyard where I live are fairly green. They’re fairly conscious about what a good opportunity it is for them to do business.

Do you see your influence extending beyond Martha’s Vineyard, given that you travel a lot as part of your career?

Of course. I don’t get on stage to preach to people about what they eat. Most of what you teach, you teach by example. In the course of traveling across the country, I have so many conversations with people and I think that I can at least inspire some thought, if not change. As I travel more, I try to seek out a local co-op or business where I can support people growing transitional produce, people who are trying to make the switch to organic rather than people who have been doing it for years and years. Sometimes that’s just preaching to the choir.

Since you started your involvement in food and agriculture issues, what has changed, for better or worse?

Unfortunately, agribusiness has never been bigger and as a result of the way plants cross-pollinate, there’s not enough non-GMO crops out there. But when you look and take Temple Grandin, for example, who designed livestock-processing facilities that process half the cattle in the United States. Her whole idea was that she wanted to design a slaughterhouse where cows were calm at the end of the line. Thinking about how many cattle are slaughtered each day, that kind of design unburdens us from the weight of a lot of pain. I think she’s made as much of a difference as anybody, and that’s change for the better.

What is biggest obstacle in changing the way we grow and eat our food?

I think the biggest obstacles are going to be greed and laziness. Agribusiness being willing to sacrifice quantity for quality. There is enough land to grow enough food for all the folks. That’s all there is to it, but it’s obviously a lot more complicated.

What gives you hope?

Different trends about the way that the world is changing. The idea that kids in my own community are growing the food in their school. Corn is still a bummer. I’m still sad about corn. And really, I think the legalization and medicalization of marijuana is an optimistic trend because it’s potentially one of the biggest cash crops that the government has been neglecting for a long time.

For you, what does the ideal food system look like?

I think the best thing is if you go out and you notice that a tree has a ripe avocado on it, you go over and knock a few down, put balsamic and olive oil on it, and offer it to your mother’s brother.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Papaya, avocado, salt, pepper, red onion, olive oil, and lime juice.

Albert Straus is a dairy farmer and President of Straus Family Creamery located on the beautiful shores of Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore, 60 miles north of San Francisco. He is an outspoken advocate for sustainable, non-GMO dairy production, farmland protection and environmental stewardship.

Albert’s family farm, which has been operating for more than 65 years, began when his father, Bill Straus, began farming there 1941 with just 23 cows. Ellen Straus, Albert’s mother, read the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in the early 1960s and began the family’s strong commitment to environmental sustainability.

In 1993, the farm became the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi River, making Albert an industry innovator and organic pioneer. The creamery, which he founded in 1994, is a leading producer of the highest quality organic milk, yogurt, butter, sour cream, and ice cream. In 2004, Albert introduced methane-digester technology to convert dairy waste into energy, which today not only powers the farm but also powers his car. The extensive sustainability program that Albert implemented at the dairy and creamery also includes a closed-loop water reuse system; production of milk in reusable glass bottles; and an employee carpool program.

What issues have you been focused on?

Primarily it’s the financial viability of our family farm. Specifically, the lack of availability of certified organic, verified non-GMO feeds for cows. There’s pressure on farmers to grow GMO crops for fuel and not for food. I’m also focused on helping consumers and farmers keep GMOs out of our food supply.

What inspires you to do this work?

As a farmer, I’ve built the creamery with a vision to sustain local family farms. I enjoy challenges and taking on the innovations necessary to move farming forward toward sustainability. I also love making high-quality dairy products; making great ice cream is fun, too.

What’s your overall vision?

The vision for our company reflects my own vision to sustain local, family farms and produce the highest quality dairy products that are organic, non-GMO, minimally processed, and without additives. We’ll add more to our vision as we continue to look at the triple bottom line and how we can have a zero impact on our environment.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I don’t have much time to read, but when I do, I mainly read trade publications about the organic foods industry and alternative-energy technologies.

Who’s in your community?

Family farmers and local food producers, like Cowgirl Creamery and local bakeries. Our community is also environmentalists who are working together with ranchers to preserve our area, keep it as agrarian as possible and a local food source. My mother helped start MALT (the Marin Agricultural Land Trust), which was the first agricultural land trust in the country.

What are your commitments?

I’m committed to organic, sustainable family farming, and to keeping family farms economically viable.

What are your goals?

To produce food and be part of a community that looks at everything we do through a sustainable lens. To work with our land, treat our community and our employees well, and be profitable at the same time. And, to provide a source of food that is healthy and comes from a sustainably produced farming community.

What does change look like to you?

A positive change would be getting away from the conventional methods used since World War II, like pesticides, commercial fertilizers, and GMOs.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

We’re reaching out to consumers and students with information about the connection between what you eat and how it’s produced. We’re all very involved in the labeling of GMOs in foods movement. We are the first dairy to be verified by the Non-GMO Project.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

The Non-GMO Project and the Just Label It campaign; MALT and Marin Organic; Slow Food, Slow Money and Vandana Shiva’s organizations.

What projects and/or people are you inspired by?

I’ve been inspired by Dr. Vandana Shiva, who came by our farm and creamery. I’m inspired by what a great spokesperson and advocate she is for farmers, especially in India. She’s asked me to help produce an organic dairy there. She has a great heart and great vision. For me, it feels like a genuine opportunity and I hope to collaborate. It’s for a vision of sustaining land and people and making organic available and to make a difference in India. The motivations are right and are likely to succeed. Even though there are huge challenges.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

It needs to have the foresight to be proactive to protect organic integrity and to develop the local food movement as well. As far as being more effective, I think we need to test and verify our products for GMOs so consumers don’t have to question whether products are tainted. We also need to work together more as a community to protect our food systems.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

I think consumers and the public can demand that we have labeling of GMOs and that would be essential to protecting what organic is about. We need to enact laws to prohibit companies from patenting life forms. And, get rid of a lot of the subsidy programs that allow a third of the corn grown in America to be put into ethanol and biodiesel and taken out of the food system.

Consumers have the power to make change in this country. A real possibility? I think that anything is possible. Since people are pretty fed up with what’s happening in this country, I think change is coming. When things get really extreme people react and make change. I think we’re about there. And, then it’s just educating the public so they know what the issues are and it’s not all hidden.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Of course it’d have to be a bowl of ice cream. My latest favorite is our brown sugar banana with chocolate chips.

Over 1,000 people have gathered in Oakland, California to attend the Community Food Security Coalition Conference today, an annual gathering that, as Nieto says, is “a real opportunity to organize and a call to action to take back our food system.” We are just steps from the tent city housing a lively group of Occupy-ers and the boarded Bank of America and Wells Fargo storefront windows along Broadway Street. In light of these converging movements and the urgency of communicating the needs of the 99 percent, it’s fitting to highlight and champion the work of Y. Armando Nieto, Executive Director of the California Food and Justice Coalition. A child of the 60s, he is a staunch supporter of rising up and speaking your mind. Nieto is also a veteran of the environmental movement and a seasoned executive and development professional who is applying his business acumen towards good food for all. Let him inspire you to rise up and take a stand for what matters most to you and your community. The time is now.

What issues have you been focused on?

The California Food and Justice Coalition is focusing on the 2012 Farm Bill reauthorization process as an organizing mechanism, not to organize for organizing sake, but to keep people more engaged in the system. We are a coalition of California organizations, but in order to affect the Farm Bill legislation, we partner with other organizations around the country. Our goal is to build a strong coalition that will work together for this Farm Bill and beyond.

Within the state, we have a real emphasis on holding listening sessions to set up a dialogue process that’s on-going; to learn what priorities people have for food and farm policy; and demystify the legislative process so people see what’s going on with food policy.

We also work with a couple of counties on a pilot project called Mothers Taking Action in San Joaquin and Ventura counties to provide a safe environment for mothers to share how they care for their families in good and bad times and how they can empower each other and effect change in their communities. It gives us a way to stay directly involved with families at a grassroots levels.

What inspires you to do this work?

I’ve been building up to this my whole life. I was CEO of Redefining Progress and Managing Director with the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, and Executive Director at Eagle Eye Institute in Somerville, Massachusetts, Earth Share of California and the Environmental Defense Center. I’ve also done a lot of social justice work. All along, people become engaged then their attention wanders—but start messing with someone’s food plate they start paying attention again. I can bring the experience and expertise of the networks I’ve known, to use food as an organizing mechanism for fixing what’s wrong with our society.

What’s your overall vision?

We take back the food system. The necessity of this will engage people in conversations about values. I believe the purpose of food is to nourish people, it’s not a commodity to create wealth. That puts the cart before the horse. We can get back to core values of what we as people around the word believe in and re-create the kind of government and society that will work for us.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I work a lot and do a lot of volunteer work, so I read a lot of absolute fiction. I became a good friend of Dean Koontz at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. His books can be post-apocalyptic, about society that isn’t sustainable, and individuals responding by creating their new environment. He raises practical information in fantastical situations.

Who’s in your community?

All the young people. Where are the people my age? I just turned 60 and it was great to get well wishes. Staff here tends to be 35 and younger and the work I’m doing tends to be with that age group. I’m energized and empowered to be associating with people who care and work for similar values.

What are your commitments?

I totally believe I’m on the planet for a reason. I’m a child of the 60s, a lot of civil unrest and rage against the machine. I’m blessed to be a survivor, to have a seat at all the tables I’ve wanted to be at and have solution-oriented conversations. I am all about service. I’m a recovering alcoholic and believe we have the opportunity to create a better world. I’m old enough to have seen things going in cycles, the pendulum swinging back and forth; I choose to believe that we can spiral to a higher consciousness and apply lessons that seemingly generations have learned over and over again. We can evolve from that.

What are your goals?

They used to be when I was 30, live fast, die hard and leave a good looking corpse. My goals now are to be of service until I stop breathing. I have a 25-year old daughter who is half Chicano; I hope the world I’m creating provides her the opportunities for professional and personal growth that have not been available to me. If I stay teachable, I will probably live forever and continue being an example of what you can do right and wrong and continue to survive. That’s my goal.

What does change look like to you?

I think that as individuals we are changing all the time, but I hope THE CHANGE happens in my lifetime. I’ve been around long enough to see how a culture evolves around fear, so change looks like freedom, people being able to breathe free and really discount and not pay attention to the histrionics and propaganda. Just see it for what it is and ignore it. It’s the most powerful thing we can do.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

It’s showing up. It means questioning everything that’s the common lexicon. For example, democracy isn’t voting every four years. It’s about being responsible and accountable for yourself. People can begin to not look to the President, like after 911 ‘go shopping’; what if it was to reach out to your neighbor, come of out of fear, have a potluck, take responsibility for being a part of a community? I think one of the sins the grown ups did in this country, morally, two big ones we allowed to happen, after 911, when the world said we are America, we allowed that to be politicized for a little man from Texas, and during the 2008 political campaign, we allowed Hilary Clinton to be demonized for saying it takes a village to raise to child. It was morally corrupt to demonize her. I was not a huge Hillary supporter, but we were wrong to do that.

We don’t have enough discourse, that’s where it starts.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

The Mothers Taking Action program we’re piloting for two years and building a replicable model to offer to all 52 counties in California. It’s a way to honor how families have survived, what mothers know and what has kept families fed in good times and bad. In society we have set ways of doing things and this puts our money on the mothers.

There’s local work we do on food policy councils. We’re members of the Oakland Food Policy Council, and Berkeley Food Policy Council.

We’re working with Roots of Change to build a council of councils. To create a platform, a statement of values that we all can share.

We co-hosted the 15th annual Community Food Security Conference. It’s a real opportunity to organize and a call to action to take back our food system. So some of the things we’re doing are challenging people to engage in conversations. It’s important to organize the organizers, but we want to go deep and engage citizens and residents and find out how they can to be engaged.

We’re working more and more on the effects of climate change and food systems. And the struggles for nutrition we’ll have in changing economic and climate times.

What projects are you inspired by?

I’m inspired everyday by work that individuals do. I’m skeptical of magic bullets; so while I totally appreciate and participate in celebrating the efforts of groups and individuals, I don’t think it serves anyone to single out anything I don’t have first hand knowledge of. What I’ve learned in putting together this conference is the Black Panther Party put on breakfast for over 200,000 children without any government support. We can celebrate that without getting into any political things.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

Yeah, so I’ll give it to you straight. What happened before I took this position, I worked extensively in the environmental and environmental justice movement and climate change, and AB32 as CEO of Redefining Progress,which was a think tank of economists. I learned that things will get a whole lot worse before they get better.

So let’s focus on what we can do, on food. What is the purpose of food, not the histrionics of population and starvation; no let’s go back to what that means for individual communities and how a community can be self-sustainable and how we take that conversation away from multi-national corporations and money interests.

All of this is coming to fruition right now in a time of economic, social, environmental and psychological change. It’s a wonderful opportunity to catalyze grown-ups and responsive people to take back agriculture from the people who have effectively destroyed any opportunity for a sustainable future.

Non-traditional partners will have to come together and figure out how we interact and make it work for all of us. Then see what partners we have at the next concentric ring.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be, to be more effective?

It needs to get over it’self. Like any movment, I’ve always felt the same; I’ve always felt like a martian on the planet. Whether the civil rights or Chicano movement, we all think we are very cool, a way of being that’s probably been with us since we crawled out of the scum. But we have to realize we are all in this together. What comes out of today’s activities will be something new. It won’t be the food movement but a movement of peole that falls out of being accountable and reponsible. The food movemnt is a part of that, but we really have to get over this singleness and specialness to realize we all have to work together to creat the kind of world we all want to be in.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Carnitas and mole enchaladas.

As Campaign Manager for Food Day, a project led by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Lilia Smelkova has a lot to do before the October 24 debut of this nationwide effort that hopes to advance the momentum of the food movement.

Good thing this isn’t her first time at the rodeo.

Lilia worked for Slow Food International for 10 years and not only initiated the Slow Food network in Eastern and Central Europe as well as Canada, she also worked on the core team (of five!) that planned the first Terra Madre, a meeting of food communities from 150 countries. While at Slow Food in Bra, Italy, she also supervised international communications and directed the launch of an international education program that birthed the first European network of sustainable school cafeterias.

Originally from Belarus, Lilia holds a BA from Minsk Linguistics University, a Master’s in languages from Turin University and a Master of Science in Environment and Development from King’s College London, and is fluent in Italian, Russian, English, French, and Spanish. She also earned a certificate in environmental management from UC Berkeley, where she co-authored a nutrition education study and recently guided an expedition of Italian scientists along the Silk Road to research food preferences and genetics. Lilia, an enduring idealist, believes that food is among the best ways to experience the world, especially Uzbek pilaf, Pamir mountain mulberries, and Transylvanian jams.

What issues have you been focused on?

I’ve focused mostly on food education and taste education. Taste education is about developing taste buds and the senses so that people can recognize good food. If you educate kids to taste food, they tend to change their interest and cravings for salt and sweets for example. Since moving to the U.S., I’ve focused more on policy. Food Day is really about how to change policy and how we make the work of non-profits easier and make Food Day work for policy change. I’m also getting into the Farm Bill because I think it’s key for the states. I’ve always thought that’s it’s personal choice that influences change; the more I work here I realize it’s not enough to address personal behavior through education, but we should work on food access, especially in food deserts, so there needs to be more done to improve policies. I’ve changed my opinion recently.

What inspires you to do this work?

When I was a kid in Belarus in the 90s, we had really bad food because when the Soviet Union collapsed all the junk came in and we didn’t have a lot of choice. I didn’t realize we didn’t have variety and quality. When I ended up at Slow Food, which was sort of an accident, my taste changed and my vision of the world changed. It made such a big difference for me personally. Initially, I started to work in Eastern Europe and I wanted to teach the kids there because I saw the difference in me and wanted to share that with them. Then I realized it’s not just an Eastern European thing, it’s everywhere. What people eat in the U.S. influences the world, so changes here can have a big impact. So, I just want to change the world.

What’s your overall vision?

I think I’m quite idealistic and I think that works. When I work I think of an ideal world and how that should be. So for Food Day, I start from there: Who do I want to get involved? What does the ideal event look like? If I hear it isn’t possible I will do anything it takes to make it possible. It’s more of a work style to set goals high and try to reach them. If I don’t arrive, I feel sad I didn’t but I know I did a lot to try.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I like Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle very much. And, I found Momentum and The Tipping Point useful. I’m reading now Fair Food by Oren Hesterman. And of course Carlos Petrini’s books – they are always good to read again.

Who’s in your community?

When I was with Slow Food, it was mostly colleagues and friends there. I get very close to people I meet through work and there are people in Canada, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. For the first time in my adult life I am working with people who talk about more than food. It’s fun to see how people not in the food world talk about food. I’m also very close to my sister. Here in the U.S., it was rather hard and took a while to build a group. I met a lot of new people like bloggers, community gardeners, educators, and chefs.

What are your commitments?

My work is my hobby. And, I’m lucky I’ve always done what I like. Dialogue is very important because sometimes there is very little. I like building networks and putting people in touch and trying to tie differences together and getting people from different sides together to talk. Wonderful things can happen. I appreciate an honest approach in everything.

What are your goals?

I would love Food Day to become at least as big as Earth Day and to change how kids are educated at schools. I’d like to see more food education in schools.

What does change look like to you?

It’s hard work of course and takes a lot of time and I think change is viral. When something happens and there is a critical group of early adopters of a new concept it can snowball. The trick is to get the critical group. I don’t know exactly how it happens. To give an example, when I started European Schools for Healthy Food–a network of 11 countries to improve food in the cafeterias, financed by the EU–I started by telling people whom I hoped to get involved that there was a network, before one existed, and so it was created.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

Seeing what ideally will work, having a vision and talking to people and asking for feedback, and sharing and seeing it as a structure and seeing how it actually takes shape. Once it does, I let it go. I know it will go well and it’s in the hands of people who know what they are doing.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

To date, for Food Day we have 45 states involved and more than 700 activities planned. We have major involvement from school districts (LA, Boulder, Denver) and public health departments in LA County, Seattle, and the state of Colorado. There are different events ranging from a huge festival in Savannah, GA to a progressive dinner along the Santa Cruz River in Tucson. There will even be an event in Union Square in New York. All of the events can be seen here.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a possibility?

I think so. With Food Day we have created six policy priorities. There’s a petition on our Web site and information about the initiatives. If you think there will be hundreds of events around the country with thousands of people participating, I am optimistic that momentum will be good. It’s hard to say what will happen in five to 10 years, because I don’t have a deep understanding of U.S. food policy, but maybe in six months I can answer that.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

There should be more dialogue. Groups need to get out of their silos, recognize the expertise of those of different backgrounds, share information and look for common goals. For example, in California I was talking with groups separately about Food Day, so to make it easier we had a conference call with several organizations together and they came up with a joint policy statement for the Farm Bill that was inspired by just one phone call. They will promote it on Food Day, a very common sense document on a large scale policy platform from groups of different backgrounds.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

I was thinking about this the other day. It would be cottage cheese pancakes my Mom makes with sour cream and kefir. It’s something I had as a kid before school. It’s a combination of tastes I’ve been missing for at least 12 years since I left home.

Ken Meter is a very smart guy. He’s also incredibly friendly and, I hear, very fun to hang out with. He’s vocal about how the government needs to stop throwing cash at commodities and start investing in communities and as author of 70 regional farm and food economy studies, his job is to shed light on the realities of food systems change with the hardcore lens of economics. One of the most experienced and dedicated food system analysts in the United States, Ken’s work integrates market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns.

As president of Crossroads Resource Center, Ken has over 39 years of experience in inner-city and rural community capacity building and is passionate about engaging low-income people in creating solutions for themselves. His pioneering study of the farm and food economy of Southeast Minnesota, Finding Food in Farm Country, helped strengthen a collaborative of food producers and led to the creation of the Hiawatha Fund, a regional investment fund. His work serves as a national model for analyzing rural economics and has been adopted by 45 regions in 20 states across the U.S. and in one Canadian province.

What issues have you been focused on?

I focus on how local farm and food economies work and how to foster an effective movement to build stronger locales.

What inspires you to do this work?

We have this amazing movement of people trying to localize themselves and create local food systems. I’m lucky because I get to visit a lot of these folks. I think we can all be more effective if we understand how economies work, and can take action together to bring about a profound transformation.

What’s your overall vision?

If we can build better food systems in the U.S. that build health, wealth, connection, and capacity in our communities, it will be the most significant step we can take toward economic recovery. We’ve seen over the past two to three decades that the highly competitive, cutthroat economy is destroying the social fabric of our country and sucking money out of our communities. That doesn’t work when it comes to food. We have to make sure that everyone is eating well and that the food is safe.

U.S. consumers spend a trillion dollars a year buying food and each of us spends a share of this three times a day, if we are able to. Food is something that is on our minds all the time. The skills we learn by trading food in ways that build stronger communities will carry over into the broader society.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

Blogs are great for spreading the word fast, but I don’t read a lot of blogs. I read newspapers and magazines and way too many reports, trying to find deeper stories than what is obvious on the surface. I write and produce studies, so I often go back to the original data, to analyze it, or I am visiting farms or businesses in person or talking on the phone for interviews.

One book I really admire is John Berger’s Pig Earth. It’s a poignant description of a French village where people live together for most of their lives. It describes how people set up barriers against each other, and also how they get close, when life forces them together. I learned a lot about how important the peasantry was to shaping society in Europe.

Who’s in your community?

I have a national community of professional colleagues who help sustain me, as I’ve worked in 30 states and have written 70 regional farm and food economy studies. Each place I go, I meet animated, active colleagues who are raising issues and working forcefully. Unfortunately, my travel makes it hard to maintain community life in Minneapolis where I live. For 20 years, I chose to live in a low-income community because I enjoyed it there. I now live in the home I was raised in, in a suburb, where I can have a bigger garden.

What are your commitments?

I try to be very forthright in how I work with people. I try to build connections with the people I work with so we can work out of a sense of respect and trust. I’m pretty committed to doing as much as I can in my life to make this a better society where people have better lives and better opportunities.

What does change look like to you?

I see change in the U.S. being something that’s very rapidly being organized by people for themselves, to provide an alternative to the ignorant and immature whining that big money funds. It’s a very chaotic time. There are so many young people, farmers and consumers of all ages saying there’s something wrong with what we’re doing. People are very hungry for honest political discussion and effective work.

Change is learning from mistakes, breaking old habits and letting things emerge that we know we can’t predict but know we need to get to. Because we have had it so easy in the United States, as a people who have benefited from prosperity that was built upon privileged access to cheap oil and upon removing resources from other nations, I think we often behave like spoiled addicts. In many ways, change is recovery.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

I work fairly closely with the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC), because it is one of the few networks that understands we won’t have effective food systems unless low-income people are actively engaged in building answers for themselves. I’ve taken leadership to help create a Community Economic Development Community to bring local food leaders into better contact to learn from each other.

I also worked with USDA for seven years, advising the Community Food Projects. This is a remarkable program in which federal money actually is designed to leverage the work that low-income communities launch to build better food systems for themselves.

My partners across the country are local farmers’ groups, local foods networks, economic development officials, foundations, and legislators.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

I’m impressed with all my partners, and it would be impossible to pick just one. I’d point to two right now. Dream of Wild Health: This is a Native American project with a phenomenal history. A Winnebago elder woman devoted decades to cultivating traditional corn, beans and squash. She saved and planted their seeds, and tended to them in a garden as far from GMOs as she could find. When she was 92 she passed these precious seeds onto Dream of Wild Health. Now these are helping feed the Indian communities of the Twin Cities. It’s a profound way to carry on new linkages in the community and pass on a critical heritage.

I’m also writing a study of the Indiana food industry. There is a great deal emerging there, and I have been so welcomed by people all over the state who have invited me to their farms and homes. Some really immense issues are at play, and people are talking about them very honestly. I feel privileged to have this chance to help foster this change.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

It’s hard to have much hope for Congress taking action right now, with the polarization in politics and the tremendous hatred broadcast by so much of the media.

Moreover, the shift we need to make is to stop throwing cash at commodities, and to start investing in communities. Congress will not take the lead on that because of who funds them. We have to make this happen at the local level first. Congress needs to see this happen in their home communities. Once we show what is possible, Washington will have no choice but to support it—but we may not get strong enough unless we can make use of federal money to achieve our visions.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

We have phenomenal energy and vision as a movement. I’d argue it’s the most broad-based movement I’ve experienced in my lifetime. We have plenty of drive. Yet most groups I know could use ten times the money they have access to right now.

We spend way too much on war that undermines our communities where we live because we’re exposing our soldiers to random attacks, and dropping bombs overseas. We have policies that subsidize the wealthy, while schools lack basic supplies, and have to deal with the frustrations of students who feel this injustice. If we can find ways for local people to invest in our own communities, in ways that help us keep resources locally to work for a common good, we may be able to reverse all this. I think food is how we are figuring this out.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Since you ask this question during the summer in Minnesota, I think of pesto from my garden. I like the intense flavor of the basil and how it propels me forward in the hot weather.

Photo credit: Jerry Carlson, Agri-Energy