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You may have missed the 2011 conference, but you can still read about the workshop presenters, below.  Don't miss our next event... follow us on Facebook!

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Keynote Speaker - Rashid Nuri

Founder of Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture

Rashid possess over forty years of experience in both industrial and organic agriculture, where he has managed public, private and community-based food and agriculture businesses in over 30 countries. Through his travels, Rashid has observed and learned about local food economies around the world. His experience has included managing farms in excess of 13,000 acres as well as more than 12 years with agricultural giant Cargill.  Rashid also served four years as a senior executive in the Clinton administration as the Deputy Administrator of the Farm Service Agency and Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Rashid is a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied Political Science and holds a M.S. in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Massachusetts and

Leah Penniman

Leah Penniman , Soul Fire Farm, is a black organic farmer, mother, high school science teacher, and activist working for justice in upstate NY. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and International Development and a Masters Degree in Science Education from Clark University, MA. Leah has worked for 10 years in urban high schools inspiring teens to be connected to the miracles of nature and land and to be empowered as learners. Before starting her farm, she founded the Harriet Tubman Free School, Albany, NY and co-founded the teen urban farming program, Youth Grow, Worcester, MA.  She has also done international work in farming and environmental preservation, including work in Ghana, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic, and is preparing for a delegation to Haiti this January.

Leah got started with her hands in the earth at age 15 in the Food Project, Boston MA and has been hooked on soil ever since. She worked on Many Hands Organic Farm in MA for several years and there learned the art of sustainable farming. She now has a total of 15 years of experience growing and preparing real, delicious, live foods that are light on the earth and energizing for our bodies.  www.soulfirefarm.com

Sustainable Lifestyle Choices & Renewable Resistance

Jason Corwin

Jason Corwin is a life long photographer, filmmaker, and activist on many social and environmental issues.  Blissfully married for 10 years in a revolutionary relationship with his lovely co-coordinator and comrade-for-life, Jason is also a citizen of the Seneca Nation of Indians, a student of the metaphysics of decolonizing and harmonizing relationships, and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University.

Leslie Jones

Leslie Jones is a grease car driver and off-grid survivor who has been living unplugged (DIY-style) in the hills of Haudenosaunee Territory (Central New York) since 2002. As an eco-justice media-making prison abolitionist since 1996, Leslie is part of a growing collective of activists of color who are creating bridges between the woods and their hoods with practical examples of health and wellth, while maintaining their cultural identities and power as people shifting their consciousness and renewing their spirits in honor of their ancestors, their elders, and future generations.

Black and Green:  200 Years of Sustainable Living

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott, Vice Director at Weeksville Heritage Center and Weeksville’s Director of Research, is an Anthropologist, Historian, and Curator, who has studied communities of African descent for over fifteen years.  At Weeksville, Jennifer researches and interprets nineteenth century African American, Caribbean and African communities in Brooklyn, New York, and the Northeast; supervises Weeksville’s archival, object and architectural collections; and produces Weeksville's intellectual activities, including an annual public lecture series, symposia, publications, oral history project, and collection and preservation initiatives. Jennifer has been charged with developing a number of components for Weeksville’s new Education and Cultural Arts Center to open at Weeksville in 2012, including Visual Collections Storage, an Oral History Studio, and a Resource Center, which will sponsor new research and host academic and educational activities, including teacher institutes.

Jennifer is an Adjunct Professor at The New School in New York, where she teaches courses in cultural anthropology, material and visual culture, public history, and museum studies, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in the Art and Cultural Management Graduate School of Art and Design, where she co-teaches a course on cultural pluralism and museum representation.

Before Weeksville, Jennifer served as a researcher and consultant for a number of non-profit, arts, and history organizations, including City Lore for the Place Matters Project on the Lower Eastside, where she researched historic places and communities throughout New York City, documenting their diverse cultural and architectural assets; and the American History Workshop in New York, where she engaged in interpretive planning, performing historical and curatorial research for a permanent exhibit on “Freedom and Slavery.” She is a contributor to a number of museum and heritage publications, including Hidden New York: A Guide to Places that Matter (Rutgers University Press/2006), The Museum: Agent of Social Change (Heritage365/2008), Inspiring Action: Museums and Social Change (Museumsetc/2009), and more recently, The Radical Museum: democracy, dialogue & debate (MuseumID/2011).  Jennifer also served on the advisory board of StoryCorps Griot, a national oral history project, which collected the stories of African Americans throughout the US, in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, the American Folklife Center and the Library of Congress.  

Jennifer holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Michigan. Her graduate research focused on West African women dressmakers and textiles. Her work and academics have allowed her to live, work and travel extensively throughout the U.S., Caribbean, and Africa.

Elissa Blount Moorhead
Elissa Blount Moorhead, Designer, Curator, Lecturer, is an interior and exhibition designer focused on Eco-Design for urban communities. A former attorney at MTV, Sesame Street and Nickelodeon, she attended Parsons School of Design in NYC and focused on urban and sustainable design issues. She also developed and teaches the Cultural Pluralism (Representation and Museums) course for Pratt’s Graduate School of Art and Cultural Management, where she has been a professor for eleven years. 

Prior to her work as a designer she spent 12 years as an arts curator and programmer. She co-founded Red Clay Arts in NYC where she curated and produced over 20 cutting edge exhibitions and shows including Random Occurances - a multi- venue  exhibition in conjunction with Project Diversity/ 2005; Photosynthesis at Skylight Gallery/ 2003; Cat Calls at St Ann’s Warehouse/2001; and Practicum - an inaugural series at BRIC/2002. She also developed and conducted an international media arts program. She was Director of RushKids, an arts education program administered but Rush Arts Gallery. She is the principal of Paragraph Designs, a full service environmental and exhibition design company in Brooklyn, NY. She has lectured and published work internationally covering design, environmental design and history, and museology.  Her most recent work, she co-authored with colleague, Jennifer Scott, can be read in the current International Museum Identity Book Series entitled: The Radical Museum: democracy, dialogue & debate.

As Weeksville’s Vice Director and Director of Design, Programming, and Exhibitions, she is currently launching a three-year exhibition and programming slate for Weeksville Heritage Center in the contemporary gallery, garden, and performance spaces of their new Museum. Elissa is also providing project direction for the construction of the new building. 

Building Bridges:  We must tread water in order to build bridges for those who follow.

Kyoka Akers

Kyoka Akers is a graduate of Jess Lanier High School and Miles College with a degree in Mass

Kyoka was one of the eleven people chosen, out of the country, to become a Real Food Fellow. She also participated in the Food and Freedom Rides, which was a twelve- day road trip that started in Birmingham and ended in Detroit. The purpose of the trip was to commemorate the Freedom Riders of the 1960ís and to promote food and social justice and expose injustices.

Kyoka is a food and health advocate who believes in holistic living and re-connecting mind, body and spirit. She is focused and dedicated to giving her all to exposing the ills the industrialized food system and the benefits of REAL FOOD.

Jason Patterson is currently working as the Youth and Outreach program Coordinator for the Community Food Advocates, planning and developing youth advocacy and obesity prevention campaigns. Jason also is the co-founder of People United for Sustainable Living, a volunteer organization aimed to promote self-sustainability through agriculture.  Born and raised in the inner city of St. Louis, Missouri, Jason enrolled in Dillard University in 2005. Misplaced by the rapture of Hurricane Katrina, Jason settled in Nashville to attend Tennessee State University. While enrolled at TSU Jason joined a number of organizations, as well as founding Sankofa, an organization aimed to smooth the transition from high school to college for first generation college students.

Developing Popular Culture Around the Farm Bill:  Building a Popular Base for Action

Suzanne Babb

Suzanne Babb was born and raised in Montreal, Canada.  She is a recent MPH graduate from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.  She is a member of Black Urban Growers (BUGs).  and the Faith and Justice Farm Bill Working Group. She is currently a Policy Research Intern at Food Systems Network NYC. Suzanne believes that advocacy at the policy level has the greatest potential for wide spread, long lasting sustainable change in our food system.

Nancy Romer is General Coordinator of the Brooklyn Food Coalition and Professor of Psychology at Brooklyn College. She's been an activist for the last 40 years.

Shared Struggle: Global Challenges in Food Security and Models for Student Activism

Currently a member of the second cohort of Columbia University's Master of Public Administration in Development Practice program, Keondra S. Bills focuses on sustainable livelihoods in the non-industrial world.  Upon receipt of her B.S. in Marketing from Fordham University, she spent a few years in private sector market research before serving in the Peace Corps (Fiji) as a volunteer business advisor in the integrated environmental resource management program.  In addition to her work in Fiji, she has experience in smallholder farming systems in Western Kenya and South Africa.  Her food-related interests include environmentally sustainable food systems, urban agriculture and the role of government/geopolitics in managing food and national security in a global context.  A U.S. Department of State Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow, Keondra will serve as an Economic Officer in the Foreign Service upon conferment of her degree.

Structural Racism, Land, and the Food System

Anthony Giancatarino

Anthony Giancatarino holds a master's degree in public administration, with a specialization in policy analysis, from the NYU Wagner School for Public Service. Anthony’s studies have focused on urban economics, food policy, and participatory policymaking strategies in urban communities of color. As a graduate student, Anthony worked as a research assistant at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. There, he provided research and GIS support for several projects, including the 2010 State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods report, which provides advocates, city officials, and residents with a comprehensive demographic and housing analysis of New York City’s 57 community districts. Before enrolling in graduate school, Anthony taught high school courses in U.S. and world history, U.S. government, and social justice. While a teacher, Anthony also coached cross country and track and coordinated volunteer programs for students. In addition to his M.A., Anthony holds a bachelor’s degree in theology and political science from the University of Scranton. 

James Subudhi

James Subudhi oversees the strategic development of CSI’s leadership program, and manages and delivers trainings on structural racism. Prior to joining CSI, for nearly four years, James was the Environmental Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. In this capacity he led their food justice initiative, an organizing, advocacy, and policy campaign to get good food in schools. In addition he also coordinated a community-based planning process to redevelop an abandoned polluting facility in the Hudson River.  James brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience in grass roots organizing, training, coalition building, advocacy, research, and policy development towards creating social and environmental justice.He received a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Urban Studies from Eugene Lang College, was 2009 fellow from the Environmental Leadership Program, worked in Alaska on renewable energy issues, and farmed in upstate New York. He enjoys running, walking around the city, and performing music.

The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act and Economic Justice

Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School where he directs the Program in Real Estate, Land Use, and Community Development.  He teaches Property, Land Use, Remedies, and a seminar course in Rural Development and has published several articles on property issues that affect low- to moderate-income property owners.  Professor Mitchell served as the Reporter, person tasked with primary drafting responsibility, for the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act which was promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (commonly known as the Uniform Law Commission) in 2010 and endorsed by the A.B.A. in 2011.  The Act has been enacted into law in Nevada and Professor Mitchell is actively working with the Uniform Law Commission at this time to encourage other states including Alabama and Georgia to enact it into law.  The Act seeks to reform the law of partition with respect to family-owned tenancy-in-common property, commonly referred to as heirs’ property, as many families have lost their property as well as the real estate-wealth associated with such property as a result of court-ordered forced partition sales.  Professor Mitchell is just the second African-American to have served as a Reporter for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in the Uniform Law Commission’s 120-year history, a period of time in which it has promulgated more than 300 uniform acts including the Uniform Commercial Code and the Uniform Probate Code.  He serves on the board of Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Gathering Waters Conservancy, and the Association for Law, Property and Society.

Prior to entering legal academia, he worked as an associate at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. and served as a law clerk for Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District Court of the D.C. Circuit.  He received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College; his J.D. from Howard University School of Law; and his LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin Law School upon completion of the William H. Hastie Fellowship Program.

A Fool With a Plan

Greg Allen

Greg Allen is the founder of Sweetwork Project, a worker-owned organic grocery store in West Harlem.  Sweetwork Project is in the start-up phase, having recently raised money on Kickstarter.com to lease a storefront and hire a worker.  The progression of this project has been unconventional.

Greg left social work to start Sweetwork Project, which will involve young people who have recently "aged out" of or disengaged from NYC youth services programs (foster care, shelters, and jail [NYC's biggest youth program]).  Fulfilling a need in one community in order to fulfill a need in another, Sweetwork will open a vegetable and fruit market in a "food desert" where workers may earn ownership of the class-C Corporation while earning a living wage.

Sweetwork Project's small successes thus far may be instructive to anyone thinking about entrepreneurial solutions that address issues of poverty and food access.

Cornell Small Farms Program and Northeast Beginning Farms Project resources

Anu Rangarajan has been the Director of the Cornell Small Farm Program since 2004. Since joining the Small Farm Program, Anu has expanded and deepened her appreciation of the innovation and vision of small scale farmers around NY. Her vision for the program is to help support new networks, expanded research and novel extension programs that target small farms in NY.

Anu grew up growing vegetables and flowers for her family. Her love of horticulture led to degrees from Michigan State (BS, PhD) and University of Wisconsin (MS), in floriculture and vegetable production. She has been at Cornell since 1996, as an associate professor and statewide specialist for fresh market vegetable production. Her research interests include tillage, compost use and soil quality in vegetables systems, season extending and stand establishment, and organic production systems.

Matthew joined the Cornell Small Farm Program in June 2010. In 1994 he began his career in farm-based education and sustainable food production and distribution systems. Since then he has studied and worked within this field in a number of positions including: the design and management of diversified farms, consulting work with farms and farm-education organizations, teaching high school biology and agriculture, serving as Executive Director of a non-profit educational farm, participating on local and regional agriculture boards, and completing his MBA from Babson College with a focus on entrepreneurship and creativity.

Insights from Africa for Building at Home

Eugene Cooke

Kitchen.Connection.           

Eboni Banks

Eboni Banks is the Founder and Executive Director of Resident.Connect.Care. She has been working in the social service, non-profit industry for over 10 years, and comes from a family of social workers. Ms. Banks got her start in the industry by working for a national association of nutrition service providers for people living with HIV/AIDS. From there she began working with children and youth, having directed multiple after school and summer camp programs in inner city public schools in Washington, DC, and NYC. All of her youth development experience was focused on promoting student’s social, emotional, and academic learning. Programs under Ms. Banks’ direction have provided a variety of services such as corporate internships, overnight team building retreats, job readiness, life skills workshops, one-on-one college counseling, day and overnight summer camps, mentoring, academic enrichment, and outreach to parents and guardians in helping their child prepare for college. 

In 2004 she created a healthy eating component to complement the sports component of a youth program she directed in Washington, DC. That program was later approached by the Government of the District of Columbia, Department of Health to aid in implementing the city's "Improving Childhood Nutrition in the District of Columbia" action plan. That endeavor led to collaborations with Howard University's Departments of Clinical Lab and Nutrition Sciences where she began working with medical doctors and began to truly understand how food can improve health. Ms. Banks began incorporating raw meals into her personal diet at that time and her belief in its benefits was obvious to her from the time she ate her first raw meal. “I felt satisfied instead of full and uncomfortable and I could feel it in my cells!”

“Edo” Natasha Mohammed

Twenty-seven years ago, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Joseph Nelson Jr., Nature Path.  He prepared me for an illness that would later develop severe symptoms and complications. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism; that meant an under active thyroid. The thyroids’ role is to control metabolism, as a thermostat is to a refrigerator.  The thyroid hormone affects oxygen, the heart, the nervous system, digestion, elimination, brain function, hair, skin, nails, muscle, bones, etc.  With me eating and drinking spirulina, a blue-green algae and getting the right care, I recovered. I am a living work in progress. It was then I began researching the nutritional value of eating organic foods and I developed a deeper understanding for the intricacies of sustainable agriculture.  I believe we are meant to be stewards and caretakers of our Earth and its inhabitants. We are given one body, one mind, and our spirit to help complete and make evolution possible. I have gone through this process myself, through a vegetarian diet. The path I have chosen has guided me to help and encourage people through their own personal quest for optimal living; to enjoy food at its best, while living a healthy lifestyle.

Why we garden: a discussion on men of color who do gardening to fight and heal

Andrew Hoyles

Andrew Hoyles is a community activist and gardener who lives in Brooklyn, NY. He works as a compost educator in Manhattan, supporting urban gardens need for health and fertile soil. What inspires him most about the food movement is that it allows people within the black community to rediscover our past and move to a more equitable future. 

Aazam Otero

Aazam Otero is a community gardener from the Bronx.  He works full-time in the avaiation industry, but gardening remains a focal point of his political work.   Two years ago, as part of a political collective, they took over a large garbage-filled lot in the South Bronx and have established a small, but rapidly growing guerilla garden.  This garden remains off the maps, but is trying to establish itself as both an autonomous political space and garden in the Bronx and the larger NYC gardening landscape.

Jonathan Wilson

Jonathan Wilson was born in New Haven,and has lived in Brooklyn since 1999. He is Outreach, Marketing, & Sales Manager and Facilitator for Project EATS, overseeing Partner Relations, Community Involvement, Commercial Sales, and Site Expansion.  He has worked extensively in youth development and community organizing over the past decade. He is also a drummer/ percussionist and musical producer.

Jonathan fell in love with farming when he first visited Victory Gardens in Maine (although it took years to recognize and affirm that love). He believes that farming engages, addresses, and seeks to transform the many intersections of oppression, can and does support autonomy, horizontalism, and a 'world where many worlds fit"...

He hopes to explore the aspects of de-colonization, gender and LGBTQ equality, and controlling the means of our own futures in this workshop and following discussion.

Your Thoughts: A Different Type of Advocacy:  Approaches to Community Food Education

Angela Davis is the Community Food Education Program Coordinator for Just Food, a New York City based nonprofit organization, that works to unite local farms and city residents of all economic backgrounds with fresh, seasonal, sustainably grown food.  She serves a co-leader of the Brooklyn Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a national nonprofit nutrition education foundation that is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. Angela is a holistic health coach, certified healing foods specialist, and owner of Nourishing Works Holistic Health and Wellness Counseling. She is passionate about home cooking, real traditional foods, and local sustainable agriculture.

Angela is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City. She has a Master of Education degree from the George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College. She is a 2009 Environmental Leadership Program Fellow.

Melissa Danielle is a Brooklyn-based Locavore, Good Food Coach and Special Projects Coordinator for Good Food. In addition to collaborating on food and farm projects, Melissa offers wellness programs, classes, tours, and travel opportunities that celebrate good food – food that is sustainable, organic, locally grown, and ethically produced when possible. Learn more at www.MelissaDanielle.com.

T. I. Williams is an activist and educator who brings culinary arts and food justice to life through innovative workshops, cooking classes, and writings. Williams specializes in multi-sensory education and engaging demonstrations. A baker and raw foods chef and instructor, Williams uses foods in their whole state to teach audiences about slow and whole foods. Williams innovative Three Seasons cooking style empowers youth and adults to prepare healthy and sensational meals with ease.

Williams began preparing foods for others at the age of 9. Her lifelong culinary experiences have shaped a remarkable teaching style that is accessible, interactive, and memorable. Over the last decade, Williams has facilitated powerful dialogues on art, society, and culture with thousands of audience members as an educator.

In 2008, Williams founded livesip, a natural food company, to bring the vibrant world of whole food to communities and corporate entities alike. www.livesip.com

Organizing for Power: Visions of Black Food Justice and Sovereignty

Anan  Xola Lololi

Anan Xola Lololi is a community food security (CFS) advocate, musician and a Vegan.  Anan is one of the founders of the Afri-Can FoodBasket (AFB) a non-profit CFS organization that started sixteen years ago in Toronto. He has been the executive director of AFB for the last sixteen years promoting CFS and Food Justice in Toronto and all across North America. He is also the founder of the Toronto Urban Harvest Festival and the Toronto Community Food Security Diversity Network. Anan has a masterís degree in environmental studies from York University with a focus on Community Food Security and a diploma in Business Administration from Centennial College. His passion is working in low-income communities to help create food secure communities. He is a executive member of the Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative based in Milwaukee, board member of the City of Toronto Food Policy Council, Chair of Food Secure Canada Diversity Working Group, administrative and food policy consultant of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, former Board Member Toronto Region and Conservation Authority Humber Watershed Alliance, former member of the Community Food Security Coalition of North America Outreach and Diversity Committee, and was a community garden animator and food policy consultant for FoodShare Toronto. He has lectured across Canada, in the Caribbean and the United States on community food security and food justice.

AyeNay Abye was born and raised in Los Angeles. She was formerly, Lead Organizer with Californians for Justice in Oakland and Long Beach, California. At Californians For Justice AyeNay led a successful campaign, “So Fresh, So Clean”, winning $16 million dollars for Oakland High School under the landmark Williams v. California Settlement. She received her BA in American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. During her time at UCSC she was heavily involved in student organizing and was supported by Dr. George Lipsitz to expand her organizing and delve into policy and research. She has now moved to Washington DC and is the Policy Director at The Praxis Project.

Black and Green:  The Story of DBCFSN

Malik Kenyatta Yakini is an activist and educator who is committed to freedom and justice for African people in particular and humanity in general.  Yakini is a founder and the Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which operates a four acre farm in Detroit and spearheaded efforts to establish the Detroit Food Policy Council, which he chairs.   He served as a member of the Michigan Food Policy Council from 2008 - 2010.  He serves on the facilitation team of Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System.

From 1990 – 2011 he served as Executive Director of Nsoroma Institute Public School Academy, one of Detroit’s leading African-centered schools.  In 2006 he was honored as “Administrator of the Year” by the Michigan Association of Public School Academies.  He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Timbuktu Academy of Science and Technology from 2004 - 2011.  He is C.E.O. of Black Star Educational Management.

He is dedicated to working to identify and alleviate the impact of racism and white privilege on the food system. He has an intense interest in contributing to the development of an international food sovereignty movement that embraces Blacks farmers in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.  He views the “good food revolution” as part of the larger movement for freedom, justice and equality.

Yakini has presented at numerous local community meetings and national conferences on food justice and implementing community food security practices.  He is featured in the book "Blacks Living Green," and the recent movie “Urban Roots.” He is currently an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy “Food and Community Fellow”. He is a vegan and an avid organic grower.

He is a musician who plays guitar, bass and dundun drums.  He has traveled to Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Cote d‘Ivoire, Jamaica and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He is the father of three.

Monica M. White earned a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University.  She is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Wayne State University and a former Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.  


Her research investigates communities of color and grassroots organizations that are engaged in the development of sustainable community food systems as a strategy to respond to issues of hunger and food inaccessibility.  Her most recent publications include, “Sisters of the Soil:  Urban Gardening as Resistance Among Black Women in Detroit.”  Race/Ethnicity:  Multicultural Global Contexts and “D-Town Farm:  African American Resistance to Food Insecurity and the Transformation of Detroit” forthcoming in Environmental Practice.


Dr. White has received several grants and was awarded the Wayne State Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship Award for the 2009-2010 academic year for a project entitled, “Emergent Cityscapes: Communities of color, urban farming and the environment in Detroit.”    The objective for this work is to examine how citizens of the city of Detroit engage in community gardening as a means of renegotiating their relationship with the environment, eschewing reliance on external political structures to solve community problems and re-creating the city from the bottom up.  Through an examination of community gardeners, this research provides an alternative perspective on the persistent representation of Detroit as a site of urban decay that is in ruins.  



Because of her research on the urban gardening movement in Detroit, Dr. White has been invited to testify before the Michigan House of Representatives Urban Policy Committee on the importance of urban agriculture and how state government may assist its continued development.  She was also appointed to the Food Justice Task Force sponsored by the Institute for Agricultural Trade Policy (IATP).  In addition to her policy work, she also maintains a highly ranked and reviewed blog (soil2soul) and has been invited to speak at over twenty community organizations, colleges and universities.

Black/Land : A Different American History

Mistinguette Smith

When Mistinguette Smith began to gather and analyze black people’s stories about relationship to farmland, city-scapes, neighborhoods, and community green spaces in fall 2010, the Black/Land Project was born. Black/Land travels the country, identifying and amplifying the conversations happening inside of African-American, West Indian and African immigrant communities about the relationship between black people, land, and place in order to share their powerful traditions of resourcefulness, resilience and regeneration. With a background in designing food security programs and environmental- sector leadership development, Smith is currently in residence at the Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist at the University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women.

Danyelle O’Hara

Since 1990, Danyelle O’Hara has worked with organizations and communities in Africa and the southeastern U.S. on issues related to rural development, conservation, and community capacity building.  She is most interested in helping to strengthen community organizational infrastructure to develop practical plans for achieving community aspirations in the most inclusive ways possible.  Danyelle’s interest in black land ownership and relationship to land has grown out of this work and her own personal “connection to land” journey.

Food Justice and Local Farm Bill:  Engaging Inner City Communities

Jeremiah Lowery

Jeremiah Lowery is a Program Fellow at Common Good City Farm. Common Good City Farmís mission is to grow food, educate, and help low-income DC community members meet their food needs.  As a program fellow, heorganizes low-income residents in the Washington, DC area to come to the farm and learn about urban agriculture, volunteer, and take nutrition and urban farming workshops.  He speaks at homeless and low-income shelters, churches, women shelters, and different community events around Washington, DC. He also helps with the ìHeal DCî radioshow on WPFW 89.3fm, hosts food justice and environmental films at a community art space, and is helping create a food policy council in Washington, DC.

Growing Food Together CSA

Willie Flowers serves as the Executive Director of the Park Heights Community Health Alliance (PHCHA). PHCHA is a health and consumer advocacy 501c (3) in Baltimore, Maryland. Before coming to PHCHA he spent 5 years as a hospital lobbyist with the 13^th largest employer of the state of Maryland. His career has included working in public affairs, community development, political campaign management and development fundraising.

As an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC) in Washington D.C.’s Petworth community, he led a demonstration to ensure quality food at a local Safeway grocery store. As a result of this action, Safeway made a million dollar investment into the store and changed management. He also forced the closing of an unlicensed group home that housed disabled residents. Exposing the neglect of services caused a policy change that has worked to save lives since 2000.

At LifeBridge Health, Flowers co-founded the Community Service Corps and organized hospital employees to volunteer on service projects in communities near the hospital system. He also initiated a community small grant program that provides funding to community organization programs in the same communities.

Vincent Shelton is a Raw Food Advocate/Facilitator who is passionate about promoting healthy alternatives to the Standard American Diet. His grassroots mission is to change the way we look at food. Inspiring a love affair with fresh produce, he leads food tours, workshops, and raw food retreats.

He transitioned from the typical American diet to raw veganism in January 2007. Today he is 48 pounds lighter, and more energetic and clear thinking as a result of consuming raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes. He has presented programs at Whole Foods Market, Park Heights Food & Flavor Project, Great Kids Farm, EarthSave Baltimore, Vibrant Health Center, and The Yabba Pot restaurant. Speaking topics include: Detoxification Basics, Healthy Nutrition and Weight Loss, The Basics of Sprouting, and Transitioning to a New Food Lifestyle. He has also served as a panel expert for the movie Food Inc. part of the Park Heights Community Health Alliance.

Mr. Shelton is the coordinator and organizer of Raw Food Night at The Great Sage restaurant in Clarksville, MD. He’s also the creator of the Baltimore Black Health Meetup Group and the organizer of the Baltimore Raw Food Tribe which has over 150 members. He is a Certified Natural Health Professional, Certified Raw Food Chef, and Certified Holistic Health Consultant. He apprenticed as a Raw Food Chef at The Yabba Pot restaurant in 2008 and his recipes have been published on rawfoodnation.org.

If You Don’t Eat, I Don’t Eat: Think on These Things

Lila Cabbil is a committed change agent with thirty five years of experience in direct service, human potential development and coaching, workshop design and facilitation and organizational development. She is president and principle consultant of LMC Diversified Consulting, and President Emeritus, founding board member and current Director of Programs of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. Her work focuses on racial disparities in health, environment, economics, education, employment and public/justice policy. Her mission is the empowerment of people, especially youth, through personal and systems transformation.

Ms. Cabbil was director of the Multicultural Experience in Leadership Development at Wayne State University for fourteen years. She is part time adjunct faculty at the University’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. A few other examples of her vast local and national organizing and volunteerism include: designing and leading self development and leadership programs including Youth Peace Summits at the United Nations (2007 and 2009); the Rosa Parks Pathways to Freedom program; White Anti-racist Summits (held at the White Privilege Conference from 2004 ñ 2009); Generation of Promise, and acting as lead consultant for the Mayor’s Race Relations Initiative for the City of Detroit. She served on the board of trustees for American Foundation for the Blind, Visiting Nurse Association, Leadership Detroit, Michigan School for the Blind, Child Care Coordinating Council (4C). 

Ms. Cabbil is currently active as a volunteer with the People’s Water Board, the Urban Agriculture Food Justice Task Force, the North End Environmental Coalition, and the Rosa Parks Institute’s Dialogue for Racial Reconciliation, Detroit Food Policy Council, COGIC International Missions Board - Youth on a Mission, Antioch Children’s Church, The Center for the Study of White American Culture and D-Town Farm. Part of Ms. Cabbil’s life/work commitment to the movement also includes maintaining accountability partnerships with white anti-racists on an annual basis.

USDA-Farm Service Agency and Natural Resource Conservation Service Programs

Susan Pierzchanowski

Susan Pierzchanowski is the County Executive Director Suffolk County Farm Service Agency at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Riverhead, (Long Island) NY.  The Farm Service Agency is dedicated to ensuring the well-being of American agriculture, and provides equitable opportunities to farmers and ranchers through more than 40 programs encompassing commodities, loans, conservation, emergency assistance, and domestic and international food assistance.  Ms. Pierzchanowski has extensive experience working on issues related to FSA programs for Suffolk County and throughout New York State.  Susan is a past student of St. Josephs College with an emphasis in business management and human relations. 

For more information on USDA Farm Service Agency Programs – contact your local FSA office or USDA Service Center, or visit the FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov

Tammy Willis

Tammy Willis was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She attended the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in agronomy. In 1993, Tammy started her career as a student intern with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). She has continued to work as a specialist for USDA in six different states across the Nation to include Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, New Mexico, and New York.  Tammy enjoys spending time with her husband and their two children.

Walking Through the Field:  A Space for Me in Food and Agriculture

Erika Symmonds

Solita Stephens

Solita Stephens is a New York City Master Composter, Brooklyn Botanic Garden Certified Horticulturist, Metal Artist, Garden Lecturer and writer, poet, and photographer. She is a the past First Vice-President and Program Chair of the Long Island Horticultural Society, the Kings County Chair Person for District II, Federated Garden Clubs of New York State, founder of Olympus Garden Club, editor of Olympus’ quarterly newsletter “The Express”, and a Garden Consultant with the New York City Housing Authority.