Watch the Presentation

*Video distortion will be corrected after first few seconds

Biography

Lia has written hundreds of recipes and dozens of articles for national magazines like Cooking Light (where she is a Contributor and Media Spokesperson), Prevention, Health and Fitness. She's appeared live on FOX television and her work has been featured on CNN.com, MSNBC.com and WebMD.

Now Lia is furthering her goal-showing people how to connect to themselves, others and the earth we share through the enjoyment of food that's healthy for both our bodies and the planet-in new ways. In the works are a cookbook, NOURISH: Recipes and Strategies for Feeding Body and Soul, and a rich-content website and social hub, www.nourishnetwork.com, launching this spring.

Lia also continues to help food and wine companies find their voices as a branding and messaging consultant. She holds an MBA from University of Florida, a BA from Tulane University, and has studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley. She recently finished writing her first novel, I Land Home; a culinary odyssey in the vein of Like Water for Chocolate meets the modern Slow Food movement that takes readers from Corfu, Greece to both coasts of America. Lia lives in Healdsburg, CA with her husband, Christopher, and daughter, Noemi.

Biography

Professor Bruce Babcock directs the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development and is a member of the economics faculty at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, USA. CARD is one of the world's oldest and foremost agricultural policy research centers, with expertise in the analysis of economic and environmental impacts of changes in U.S. and world agricultural and trade policies.

The Center has provided analysis to such organizations as Oxfam America, Rabobank, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the National Pork Producers Federation, and many other associations, industry groups, and private companies. Dr. Babcock has conducted extensive research on improving the environmental performance of agriculture and is considered an authority on agricultural policy and crop insurance.

Currently, he leads a team that is at the forefront of research on the impacts of expanded biofuels production on food prices and availability, trade flows, and greenhouse gas reductions. He does numerous interviews and appearances as an expert for the national and international media. Dr. Babcock has published widely in both academic and popular outlets.

He is one of a small group of agricultural economists named in a compilation of the world's top-cited economists for work published between 1990 and 2000. He is often called upon by U.S. congressional staff, Senate and House committees and agencies, and the office of the chief economist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to testify and consult on agricultural policy issues. Dr. Babcock received his B.S. in 1980 and his M.S. in 1981 from the University of California at Davis and his Ph.D. in 1987 from the University of California at Berkeley.

Watch the Presentation

*Video distortion will be corrected after first few seconds

Biography

Dan Sumner engages in teaching, research, and outreach on topics in agricultural economics and policy. He is also the author of scores of professional articles, chapters and reports and the author, coauthor or editor of several books including Agricultural Trade Policy: Letting Markets Work.

His research and writing has won awards from the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society and the American Agricultural Economic Association for Quality of Research, Quality of Communication and Distinguished Policy Contribution.

He was named a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 1999 in recognition of his career achievements. He has also served as chair of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium. Sumner is a frequent speaker on agricultural economics and policy throughout world.

Sumner was on the Economics faculty of North Carolina State University for a decade. Before moving to the University of California in 1993, he spent several years on leave in federal government service. He was a Senior Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Deputy Assistant Secretary and then Assistant Secretary for Economics at the United States Department of Agriculture. At USDA, he supervised the Department's economic and statistical work and provided policy advice to the Secretary and other officials regarding GATT negotiations, the Farm Bill and other issues.

Sumner grew up in Suisun Valley in Solano County California where he was active in FFA and 4-H. He graduated with a BS in Agricultural Management from California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. He obtained his MS in Economics from Michigan State University and has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Watch the Presentation

*Video distortion will be corrected after first few seconds

Biography

Gail Feenstra is the Food Systems Analyst at the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) and the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI), based in Davis, California. Feenstra coordinates SAREP's Food Systems Program which encourages sustainable community development and local food systems that link farmers, consumers and communities. Feenstra's research and education efforts include: direct marketing, farm-to-school and farm-to-institution evaluation, regional food system distribution models, food systems indicators, urban agriculture, food security, food policy, food system assessments and most recently, carbon footprint analysis in the food system.

Her professional background is in nutrition. She is a registered dietitian and has worked in low-income communities in Boston and New York as a WIC/community nutritionist. Feenstra has a doctorate in nutrition education from Teachers College, Columbia University with an emphasis in public health. Since coming back to California, she has enjoyed integrating her nutrition expertise with her experience in sustainable agriculture and food systems at the University of California.

In addition to her work at UC SAREP/ASI, she is an associate editor of Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (formerly American Journal of Alternative Agriculture), a Kellogg fellow from participation in the Salzburg Seminar: "Achieving Food Security Through Community-based Food Systems," Salzburg, Austria, (2002), and a past president of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (2000-2001). Her career has been dedicated to integrating human, environmental and community health through sustainable food systems.

Watch the Presentation

*Video distortion will be corrected after first few seconds

Biography

Patricia Allen is Director of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work focuses on the political economic structures that can constrain or enable social equity in sustainable agrifood systems.

Allen published an edited volume, Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of Sustainability, on issues in sustainable agriculture in 1993. Her 2004 book, Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood System, analyzes social movements and alternative agrifood institutions in the United States.

Her recent research and publications focus on food-system localization and implementation of alternative agrifood practices such as community supported agriculture, farmers' markets, organic farming, and farm-to-institution programs. Her newest research project is on gendered inequalities in productive and reproductive labor in the U.S. agrifood system; this project is funded by the National Science Foundation and is in collaboration with Carolyn Sachs of Penn State University. Allen is also a member of a U.S. Department of Agriculture research team on food systems and public health.

Throughout her career, Allen has collaborated on numerous local, statewide and national initiatives and conferences, working to highlight the social issues of sustainability. For example, as coordinator of the University of California Small Farm Center, she was part of a small team that initiated and organized the first California Farm Conference in 1981, and later lead the effort to integrate sustainable agriculture into the existing themes of family farming and direct marketing.

In 1985 she spearheaded and organized the first UC system-wide symposium on the sustainability of California agriculture and the next year organized an international conference on organic agriculture and agroecology. In 1990 she conceptualized and organized a national conference on ethics, environment, and equity to discuss a broad-based vision for agricultural sustainability and highlight the need for an accompanying research agenda.

Allen's commitments to sustainability and food system issues grew from her childhood in a small family farm environment in California. She earned her B.S. in Political Economy of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley and an M.S. in International Agricultural Development at UC Davis before completing a Ph.D. in Sociology.

Watch the Presentation

*Video distortion will be corrected after first few seconds

Biography

Dr. Hesterman is the inaugural president and chief executive officer of the Fair Food Foundation. A national leader in sustainable agriculture and food systems, Dr. Hesterman has published more than 400 reports and articles. He played an essential role in the establishment of the Michigan Food Policy Council. Dr. Hesterman has also made significant contributions to the funding of healthy food and farming via his leadership of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders group. As a former farmer and an avid potter, Dr. Hesterman's eclectic and innovative experiences contribute grounded guidance to the new foundation.

Prior to coming to the Fair Food Foundation, Dr. Hesterman worked at the Kellogg Foundation for 12 years, where he envisioned and nurtured food system projects, partnerships and collaborations, national and international in scope. He also organized national and international seminars on sustainable agriculture and community-based food systems on behalf of the Kellogg Foundation.

Dr. Hesterman 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 before going to the Kellogg Foundation in 1996. From 1987-1990, he was a fellow in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP). Dr. Hesterman was also a fellow at the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Hesterman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at 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, in St. Paul.