Expert Resource Directory

Natured Family Farm's Good Agriculture Practices and Good Handling Procedures, and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's Good Food + Good Business = Good Futures program that works with institutions and vulnerable communities within the metropolitan Kansas City.

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.

Minnesota. He is an award winning author of books about policy and market power issues affecting the food system. His articles have appeared in major newspapers across the country, in leading industry publications, and in professional journals. His writing draws upon a 25 year academic career involving both advising ongoing businesses and teaching economic principles at the college level. He now maintains an active practice in consulting, writing, and public speaking. His new book with Stewart Acuff Getting America Back to Work is available at on-line retailers and bookstores. He was a member of the 2001-2003 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

Resources, and holds an Endowed Chair in Food, Society and Sustainability at Michigan State University. Dr. Foster joined the faculty of Michigan State University in January, 2010 after 15 years as Vice President for Programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. Dr. Foster’s interests lie in helping to bring integrative sustainability solutions to long-term problems impacting the social, economic, and environmental systems affecting Michigan communities. Dr. Foster focuses on the contribution collaborative models around food, water, and alternative energy systems have on future development scenarios for the future of Michigan and the nation. Dr. Foster received his Bachelor of Science (1972), Master of Science (1974) and Ph.D. (1978) in Agricultural Education from Iowa State University in Ames.

and environmental health to her role as President and CEO of the Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC), a national not-for-profit organization she founded in 2002. HSC advocates for national, state and local policies and programs that make schools healthy places to learn and work. Davis has led change on numerous public policy issues affecting children’s health, from environmental toxins to nutrition and fitness. Her role at HSC includes engaging diverse coalitions of stakeholders to promote healthy eating, physical activity and environmental health in schools. Davis has been instrumental in the development of national healthy  school food advocacy initiatives such as the Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest and school environmental health resources such as HSC’s Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools. She also served as the Principal Investigator for HSC’s National Institutes of Health funded Partnership to Reduce Disparities in Asthma and Obesity in Latino Schools. Davis is a member of the EPA’s Committee for the Protection of Children’s Health and a founding member of the Green Cleaning Network. She served as a judge for Health Magazine’s Healthiest Schools Contest and American School and University’s Green Clean Award. She is co-author of the cookbook Fresh Choices, and was the recipient of the Chicago Tribune’s 2007 Good Eating Award.

directs PFI's research program (cooperators' program) and policy work. She also serves as an agronomist on the staff transferring ideas for solutions to integrated crop and livestock concerns from farmers' stories, results from on-farm research and demonstration projects and her own knowledge as a trained agronomist. Sarah co-majored in Biology and Geography at Augustana College in the Quad Cities graduating in 2001 with a BA degree. Following graduation Sarah joined the Peace Corps as an Ag-business and Ag Extension volunteer. She lived in the southern highlands of Ecuador in South America for 2 1/2 years. Sarah returned to the Midwest in 2004 and began her Masters Program co-majoring in Sustainable Agriculture and Crop Production/Physiology in Iowa State's Agronomy Department. She graduated in the spring of 2008 with an MS degree. Sarah and her partner Oscar have three children between them, Rebecca, Oscar and Sadie. They enjoy cooking, traveling and exploring the Iowa countryside. Sarah travels to Ecuador when possible to visit farmers and friends.

Dakota State University. Dobbs retired from SDSU in 2007, after 29 years of service in research, teaching, extension, and international programs roles. Dr. Dobbs’ research during the last 20 years of his career at SDSU focused primarily on the economic and policy conditions necessary to foster sustainable farming and food systems. He has devoted a great deal of attention to agri-environmental policies in the U.S. and the European Union. Dobbs was a Visiting Scholar at the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture in 1993, where he conducted research on policy options for the 1996 U.S. farm bill. In 2000, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Essex, in England, conducting research on agri-environmental policies in the United Kingdom. Since then, he has also studied agri-environmental policies in France, where he has twice been a short-term Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Agronomique de Toulouse. His work has focused on how the multifunctionality agri-environmental policy approaches being used in the European Union might be applied in the U.S. One of the U.S. agri-environmental programs Dobbs conducted research on at SDSU was the Conservation Security Program, which was changed to the Conservation Stewardship Program in the 2008 farm bill. Dr. Dobbs grew up on a diversified crop and livestock farm in eastern South Dakota. His Ph.D. in agricultural economics is from the University of Maryland. His dissertation was based on 1967-68 field research in India on the Green Revolution. Dobbs began his professional career as an Assistant Professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wyoming, and then he joined the Foreign Service as a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) economist in Islamabad, Pakistan and Washington, D.C. After four years with USAID, Dobbs joined the economics faculty at SDSU in 1978. Dobbs has authored public policy columns for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Grist, and Treehugger. At present, he writes an ‘Economic Policy Perspective’ column for The Dakota Day. He was a member of the 2007-2008 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

hundreds of grassroots toxics groups throughout Michigan and the Great Lakes region. She currently directs the Ecology Center's chemical industry initiatives and the Healthy Food in Healthcare Initiative. In her home state of Michigan, Easthope chairs a state-based group focused on Dow Chemical accountability, and serves on the Governor-appointed State of Michigan Green Chemistry Roundtable. She helped launch and serves on the Michigan Healthy Hospital Task Force and spearheaded the founding of the Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health. A founding member of the international Health Care Without Harm, Easthope directs its work on chemicals policy and co-chairs the Safer Materials workgroup. She is also an active member of the Business NGO Working Group, a member of the Investor Environmental Health Network, and an editor of the New Solutions journal. Easthope holds a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan.

ex-corporate sales leader and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Will is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture. At Growing Power and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Will promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, Will trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces. In 2008, Will was named a John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation Fellow and was awarded a prestigious foundation “genius grant” for his work – only the second farmer ever to be so honored. He is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and in February 2010, he was invited to the White House to join First Lady Michelle Obama in launching “Let’s Move!” her signature leadership program to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in America. In May 2010, Time magazine named Will to the Time 100 World’s Most Influential People.

Project in White Earth, Minnesota. She is also the program director of Honor the Earth Fund, a national Native American-directed organization that provides funding and advocacy for frontline Native environmental work.Winona began her work with Native American issues in 1978 as a legal research writer for the National Indian Youth Council. Since then, she has worked extensively with education projects, environmental programs and community restoration. Outside of her work, Winona has taken on some other roles. She was a Greenpeace board member for six years. She is the publisher of Indigenous Woman Magazine, a bi-annual journal focused on the issues of Native women. Winona was also the 1996 and 2000 Vice Presidential Green Party candidate with Ralph Nader.Winona has been recognized for numerous achievements during her career. She was given the Global Green Millennium Award in 1998. She has also received the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Thomas Merton Award and the Ann Bancroft Award for Women Leadership. She was a member of the 2002-2004 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.