Biography:
Holly Freishtat is Baltimore City’s first Food Policy Director. In this role, she created the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, an inter-governmental collaboration that aims to increase access to healthy affordable food in food deserts in Baltimore City. Using a multi-sector perspective, Freishtat addresses policy barriers, facilitates new partnerships, and leverages funding to implement innovative solutions to address food access issues in Baltimore. She is a key advocate at the city, state, and federal level for policies to enhance availability of healthy affordable food in Baltimore’s food deserts. Freishtat has spent over a decade working on food issues in a variety of contexts, experiences that have provided her with an understanding of the food system from the perspective of a nutritionist, an educator, and a farmer. Previously, through Washington State University King County Extension, Freishtat founded CHANGE – a farm-to-school program – and developed the program’s gardening and cooking nutrition curriculum. Freishtat’s perspective on the food system is also influenced by her experience working in the agricultural sector. As the Agricultural Marketing Director for Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland, she developed a farm-to-healthcare pilot project that provided healthy, seasonal foods to hospitals and retirement communities while creating new markets for farmers. She also worked as the Community Food System Coordinator for the Lopez Community Land Trust, where she coordinated the development of the first USDA-inspected mobile slaughter facility in the country, providing consumers with direct access to local beef, pork and lamb. Freishtat has a Masters of Science from Tufts University in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition. She was a member of the 2007-2008 Food and Society Policy Fellows.
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