6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST
In this popular and free webinar series, NAFSN provides participants with connections and insights to help them identify next steps for their careers. This four-part series for Fall 2023 highlights job creators across the food systems profession.
In This Episode, We Feature:
SARA SHIPLEY HILES - Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk
Sara is an award-winning journalist and journalism educator with 30 years of experience in the field. She specializes in environmental journalism, investigative reporting, writing and editing. As the executive director of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, Sara leads a collaborative reporting network aimed at covering agriculture, water and related environmental issues across the river basin. Sara is a longtime member of the Society of Environmental Journalism, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. Currently, she serves on the board of SEJ as its academic rep. Sara teaches at the world-renowned Missouri School of Journalism. Sara does freelance writing on environmental, science and health topics, with articles published in The Washington Post, USA Today and Mother Jones magazine. She is the co-author of the book "City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina," commissioned by the Center for Public Integrity in the wake of the hurricane.
LIZ WHITEMAN - Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture
Liz grew up in northern Minnesota, spending summers helping her parents dig potatoes and carrots in their backyard gardens. After graduating with a BA in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Liz followed her passion for regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty to urban gardens in New Orleans and tropical farms in rural Ecuador. She spent 5 years in Washington DC working on federal farm policy, focusing on increased funding for sustainable agriculture and strengthening nutrition programs such as WIC and SNAP. In 2019, Liz found her way to Western North Carolina, spending a season working for Tumbling Shoals Farm in Wilkes County. Drawn to the High Country by the impressive local food economy, Liz is excited to work with local farmers and community members to continue striving for a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable food system.
SUE BECKWITH - Texas Center for Local Food
Sue Beckwith has initiated and led a variety of breakthrough service projects during her 40+ year career: the “women in non-traditional jobs” program at the City of Austin, the first City of Austin website, the non-profit Austin Free-Net to ensure that all people had access to the internet; she worked alongside lower income students in St. Louis to design a literacy program using technology. In 2006, she became a farmer and led the startup of Coyote Creek Organic Feed Mill, the first commercial organic feed mill in Texas and Jeremiah Cunningham’s World’s Best Eggs. She formed the Texas Center for Local Food with farmers to increase sales of healthy Texas grown foods to Texans which will improve the health of all Texans, preserve farmland, mitigate the effects of climate change and support resilient communities.