National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

We are pleased to announce our 2008 Board of Directors!

Partner Representatives

Re-elected representatives:
Frank Casey, Conservation Economics Program Dir, Defenders of Wildlife, Wash, DC
Thomas Forster, Policy Director, Community Food Security Coalition, Wash, DC

Newly elected representatives:

Ruth Anne Flore, Pound Ridge, NY:
In 1991 Ruth joined the Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. as their national sales and marketing director, where she helped promote the company’s award-winning European-style cheeses. She has also served on the Board of the American Cheese Society and in 1996 and 1999 co-chaired their “Back to Basics” Conference at The Culinary Institute, NY and at Shelburne Farms, VT. She has consulted with the New England Dairy Promotion Board’s Great Cheeses of New England program initiating marketing and promotional programs for restaurants, several regional chains, and a national program with Whole Foods. She is currently a Marketing Manager and Sales Associate for Crystal Food Import in Lynn, MA, importer and national distributor of hundreds of specialty artisan cheeses and foods. For the past 2 years she had advised and worked with Will Studd, Australia’s Master of Cheese, and his film crew on a series focusing on traditional cheeses, particularly the use of raw milk, farmstead milk, and natural maturation techniques.

Dennis Olson, Senior Policy Analyst, Institute for Ag and Trade Policy, Minn, MN
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy promotes resilient family farms, rural communities and ecosystems around the world through research and education, science and technology. The institute also advocates for farmers and peasants both in the U.S., and around the world, within the context of global trade debates.Olson works on U.S. agricultural trade policy and biotechnology issues among domestic and internationalfarmer,rural advocacy and other social justice networks.Before coming to IATP,he worked as a community organizer for seventeen years with grassroots farmer and environmental organizations in North Dakota and Montana on agricultural, environmental and other social justice issues. In 1994, he spent three months in the former Soviet Union networking with environmental and agricultural activist organizations. Olson graduated from the University of Montana in 1983 with a combined degree of history/political science and a minor in Russian.

Steve Potts, Family Farmer, Hamilton MO
Steve has been a family farmer his entire life. Beginning when he was a small child, Steve helped his father milk dairy cattle. He then began his own small farm with swine and sheep. Today, he lives on the farm that his grandfather bought in the 1940s and continues with swine and sheep and also has beef cattle. Steve’s farm is completely organic and self-sustaining. He also spends time in Jefferson City, MO and Washington, DC with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center fighting to eliminate CAFOs, helping to ensure the longevity of the Farm Bill, and working to improve sustainable agriculture policy.

SAWG representatives

Returning members:
Karen Anderson, Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
Don Bustos, Western Sustainable Agriculture Working Group

We are also happy to announce that Archer Christian, former Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Rpresentative, will continue to serve on our Board as an at large representative.

New members:
Stacie Clary, California Coalition for Food and Farming*
Stacie is the Deputy Director of the Ecological Farming Association and former Executive Director of the California Coalition for Food and Farming*. Through her work at EFA, Stacie is still closely connected with CCFF, working closely with the board of directors, members, and other advocates to promote sustainable agriculture in California. Before working with CCFF, she worked with environmental and social justice coalitions, including the Sacramento Housing Alliance and Friends of the River. Stacie describes her work with CCFF as motivating activists and volunteers, implementing public education campaigns, fundraising, and working with public officials. A graduate of the University of California Davis with a BA in English, Stacie was born and raised in the Bay Area, except for a four-year stint in Phoenix. Stacie lives with her husband, two dogs and two cats in Santa Cruz County where she has a small garden she’d like to expand some day.

*Stacie previously served on our board in this role.

Marty Mesh, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
Marty is the Executive Director of Florida Organic Growers (FOG) He has dedicated his work over the past 35 years, to a more environmentally responsible and socially just form of agriculture. He helped form Florida Organic Growers (FOG) in 1989 and hasserved asExecutive Director since 1995. FOG’s certification program provides organic certification services internationally. Marty’s commitment to organic and sustainable agriculture began on a conventional Kibbutz in Israel. In 1976, he helped start Bellevue Gardens Organic Farm in 1976, and helped develop a Buy Local program.He has also beeninvolved for 10 yearsin developing the Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) a non profit initiative trying to create equity and fairness in our food system through the developmentof Social Justice standards for organic and sustainable agriculture. He has been very active in public policy evaluation and its effect on sustainable agriculture, the National Organic Program and food access. He is a current board member of the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG), and past charter board member of the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), Accredited Certifiers Association (ACA) and participated as a steering committee member of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture's Organic Committee. He served on the State Strategic Planning Team for sustainable agriculture and on the state Organic Food Advisory Council. He has worked on an international level, helping farmers in developing countries through the Florida International Volunteer Corps and participates in helping develop organic agriculture in the Caribbean, South Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Brad Redlin, Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
Raised on the family farm near Sidney, Montana, Brad began his career as a high school English teacher in Sidney, MT and Sioux Falls, SD. After six years as editor of a bi-weekly news magazine in South Dakota, Brad became a federal policy analyst for the Center for Rural Affairs, in Lyons, Nebraska in 2001 and later served as Media Director for the Center. In 2004, Brad accepted the national staff position of Director of Agricultural Programs with the Izaak Walton League of America. For 85 years IWLA s nationwide membership of outdoors enthusiasts have taken as their motto defenders of soil, air, woods, water and wildlife in working closely with farm families and sustainable agriculture. Brad also serves as Co-Chair of the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group’s Conservation and Environment Committee, Co-Chair of the Coordinating Council of the Washington, DC-based Sustainable Agriculture Coalition; Participant on the Minnesota State Technical Committee of the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service; and as a Member of such agriculture-related organizations as the National Farmers Union and National Association of Farm Broadcasters. With his six brothers and sisters, Brad maintains the family farm in Montana, which is approximately 2000 acres of dryland wheat and grassland including Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts.

At-Large Board Member:

Cornelia Flora, North Central Reg. Center for Rural Development, Iowa State University.
Dr. Flora’s research interests include international and domestic development, community, and the sociology of science and technology, particularly as related to agriculture and participatory change. Socio-technical regime change and capitals transformations (natural, cultural, human, social, political and financial/built capitals) guide her current research includes work on the community development, sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, with particular attention to how class, gender, and ethnicity influence and are influenced by technology and policy. Current research on rural poverty includes action research with persistent poverty communities on the impact of investments by government and private foundations on community-driven holistic sustainability. Current research on sustainable natural resource management focuses on linking social indicators of context, process and impact to information on the threats to environmental quality. Current research on science, technology and community looks at the impact of broadband access on excluded communities.

Long-time Board member and Southern SAWG representative Archer Christian will now also be serving as an at-large Board member

For a complete Board list with bios, see http://www.sustainableagriculture.net/board.php

Happy Holidays to all!