Expert Resource Directory

and water policy, including development of local, state and national policy. In this capacity, she has worked on several projects, providing policy analysis of the Great Lakes Whole Farm Planning Network; coordinating the Midwest Consortium on Groundwater and Farm Chemicals, a collaborative to promote sustainable farming practices; and managing projects on farmland preservation and agriculture market diversification. Additionally, Kemp serves as co-chair of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, and is active in the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group. She is on the steering committee for the Clean Water Network's Feedlot Workgroup. She served for six years, including three as chair, on the board of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, a joint venture between the University of Minnesota's College of Agriculture and the Sustainers Coalition. She previously was an advisory member of the Sustainable Agriculture Task Force of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, a member of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens Board and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. In conjunction with her professional endeavors, Kemp was a speaker at the Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts Conference, and has received various awards including the Emma B. Howe Foundation award, presented by Minnesota Rural Futures in 2003; the 1998 Steward of the Land award, presented by the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group; and the Outstanding Citizen Environmental Leader of the Year award given by the Clean Water Action of Minnesota. She was a member of the 2002-2004 class of Food and Society Fellows.

daughter-in-law Judy of Stuart Farm, a 270-acre dairy enterprise with 240 milking cows and nearly 200 head of young cattle situated at the edge of the Great Bay Estuary. Over the years Stuart Farm has been recognized for its leadership in conservation and environmental management and in 2003 the Merrills were honored by the American Farmland Trust as Stewards of the Land, the organization’s highest honor. A founding member of the New Hampshire Coalition for Sustaining Agriculture, Lorraine has served on regional and national committees of the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, and as state committee chair of the USDA Farm Service Agency. Lorraine also has extensive experience in education, as an elementary school teacher earlier in her career, as a local school board member, and more recently completing eight years as a trustee of the University System of New Hampshire. Lorraine was recently appointed and is now serving as Commissioner of Agriculture for the state of New Hampshire. She was a member of the 2007-2008 Food and Society Fellows.

the annual national grassroots campaign to fund federal programs supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Over many years, she has collaborated to create and sustain funding for a number of state initiatives supporting environmentally sound, profitable, and socially responsible agriculture.  In addition to policy work, she conducts workshops nationwide on grant writing and using federal programs to support sustainable agriculture. Ms. Krome served Wisconsin Rural Development Center for nine years before joining MFAI in 1995. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Appropriate Technology and sits on the Wisconsin Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Ms. Krome writes a bi-weekly editorial column for The Capital Times in Madison, where she lives with her husband and two children.

recognized as a thought leader, organizer, and advocate for transformation of food and farming systems. He has been leading Roots of Change since 2006. He began his agriculture and food career as a marketing executive in Europe for a California-based agribusiness company. In 1992, he founded Sunflower Strategies (later called Ag Innovations Network), where he began his work on community consensus building and strategic planning for healthier food and agriculture. He pioneered regional and environmental branding programs in Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Humboldt counties, and Western Australia. Michael sat on the board of Community Alliance with Family Farmers and served as its chairman in 1994 and 1995. In 1996, he founded Slow Food Russian River, which is among the nation’s most active and influential chapters, doing pioneering work on heirloom and heritage breed protection, grass-fed beef promotion, community support for school gardens, and local food systems development. In 2000, he became the first California Governor of Slow Food USA. In 2001, Michael graduated from the California Ag Leadership program, Class XXXI, the nation’s most respected leadership development programs in the field. From 2002 to 2007, he was Chairman of Slow Food USA and a member of Slow Food International’s board of directors where he worked with Carlo Petrini, Slow Food’s founder, on international strategy. Michael’s love for food systems grew from his experience on an 11,000-acre cattle ranch in Santa Clara County in the late 1960s and a development project with Himalayan subsistence farmers in Nepal in the late 70s. He was a political advanceman for California Governor Jerry Brown in his bid to become a US Senator in 1982. He worked in US-Soviet cultural and professional exchange programs, which led him into television and film production. He holds a BA in History from UCLA, with an honors thesis on the origins of the CIA. He has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University.

State University and head of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU. Mike is affiliated with the Departments of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies; Crop and Soil Sciences; and Food Science and Human Nutrition. His appointment encompasses teaching, the Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension. The work of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU is focused on small and medium scale family farm viability, equal access by all members of a community to a healthy diet, and dispersing animals in the countryside. Prior to moving to MSU he was Dean of Academic and Student Programs for Cook College, Rutgers University. As a faculty member at Rutgers University he was co-founder and director of the New Jersey Urban Ecology Program, an effort that brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds to address sustainable food systems in New Jersey. He was also faciitator for the New Jersey Cooperative Gleaning Network since 1998 and the founding director of the Cook Student Organic Farm from 1993 to 1998. He was board member and board president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey. He does research in the areas of community food security, community and sustainable food systems.

Sustainable Agriculture Systems at College of the Atlantic. Molly has focused her career on food systems issues, from the perspectives of farmers, consumers, businesses and NGOs. She is especially interested in effective multi-stakeholder collaborations for sustainability. Her professional writing and speaking is on food security, food politics, food rights, food sovereignty and sustainability metrics. She was a Coordinating Lead Author on the North America/Europe section of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development.Before coming to COA, Molly consulted for several years on science and policy for social justice, ecological integrity and democratic food systems. Prior to that, she held two interim positions at Oxfam America 2002-2005 and a faculty position at Tufts University, where she taught, administered programs, built partnerships and conducted research for 14 years. She co-founded the Agriculture, Food and Environment Graduate Degree Program in the School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts and directed its first five years, during which she established the curriculum and joint programs. She also directed Tufts Institute of the Environment for two years. She was a national Food & Society Policy Fellow 2002-2004, and currently is a Senior Wallace Fellow at Winrock International. Molly serves on several advisory boards related to sustainable agriculture and food systems. She is a Standards Committee member of the ANSI Sustainable Agriculture Standards initiative, administered by the Leonardo Academy. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.

Director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS). CEFS is a 2000 acre facility whose mission is to develop and promote food and farming systems that protect the environment, strengthen local communities, and provide economic opportunities in North Carolina and beyond. CEFS won Organization of the Year Award from Carolina Farm Stewardships Association in 2006. Creamer’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. Dr. Creamer 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 the USDA Specialty Crops Advisory Committee to the US Secretary of Agriculture, and a member of the Advisory Council for the Food Systems Leadership Institute, a project of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. She was a member of a multi-state Organic Agriculture Consortium, and the Scientific Committee on Organic Agriculture Research. She has served as a consultant to the European Commission on funding and evaluation on organic research activities in Europe.

food systems and the author of Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All. His experience in the philanthropic sector includes more than 15 years as program director for Food Systems at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He also played an essential role in the establishment of the Michigan Food Policy Council and has made significant contributions to the funding of healthy food and farming via his leadership of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders group. Prior to starting the Fair Food Network, Dr. Hesterman was the inaugural president of Fair Food Foundation, leading their sustainable food systems programs. Prior to his work in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, he researched and taught forage and cropping systems management, sustainable agriculture, and leadership development in the crop and soil sciences department at Michigan State University in East Lansing.A former fellow in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP) and the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy in Washington, D.C., he has published more than 400 reports and articles on subjects ranging from cover crops and crop rotation to the impact of philanthropic investments on food systems practice and policy. Dr. Hesterman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of California, Davis, in plant science/vegetable crops and agronomy, respectively. He received his doctorate in agronomy and business administration from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.

and businesses with expert project development, writing, research, and facilitation.passion for the strength and necessity of community-based economies has led her from family farm roots to a career of telling the local business story as a professional journalist and policy advocate. She was previously a program director at the Michigan Land Use Institute, a statewide public interest advocacy group based in Traverse City, Michigan. She was a member of the 2008-2009 class of Food and Society Fellows.

Ricardo Salvador works with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable practices. Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for Food, Health, and Wellbeing with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this capacity, he was responsible for conceptualizing and managing the Foundation’s food systems programming. He partnered with colleagues to create programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice. Dr. Salvador also worked as an extensionist with Texas A&M University. Prior to his stint at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, he was an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University (ISU). While at ISU, Dr. Salvador taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a Land Grant University, which was distributed nationally via satellite beginning in 1989. He conducted some of the initial academic research on the “community supported agriculture” model of agriculture. He worked with students to establish ISU's Student Operated Organic Farm in 1992. He worked with other faculty to develop the nation’s first Sustainable Agriculture graduate program in 2000; Dr. Salvador served as the program’s first chair. Dr. Salvador earned his undergraduate degree in agricultural science from New Mexico State University. He holds an M. S. and Ph. D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University.