AFHVS Ballot – 2009

VICE-PRESIDENT:
JIM BINGEN

I am pleased and honored to be nominated as a candidate for the position of Vice President of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society. I think it is important to move the society forward as the premier professional interdisciplinary association that addresses the critical issues in community, food and agriculture. To do so we need to continue to assure a high level of applied and scholarly debate at our annual meetings, close collaboration with the Association for the Study of Food and Society, and our quality journal. We must also seek to attract new academic and professional members as well more young scholars by showing them how membership can enhance their work and future careers. I've been a member of the Council and also serve on the editorial board for the journal. My work on food, farming and rural development issues ranges from Michigan to Western Europe and French-speaking Africa . I'm currently involved in several applied research programs that deal with farmers market vendors, the transition to organic farming, access to organic markets and the contribution of place-based and quality food to rural development in Michigan . I teach an undergraduate course, Pesticides, People and Politics, a study abroad course, Ecology, Culture and Politics of Food in France , and a graduate course, Community, Food and Agriculture: A Survey. I am the Chair of the Board of the Michigan Organic Food & Farm Alliance (MOFFA), a member of the board of the national Farmers Market Coalition and ex-officio member of the board of the Michigan Farmers Market Association.

NEVA HASSANEIN

I am interested in serving as Vice President of AFHVS because I find it to be one of the most engaging of the academic societies I am familiar with.  Like many others in the society, I try to be both a scholar and a practitioner, and I would be interested in engaging us in discussions about how to do that most effectively.  Also, I value the interdisciplinary nature of our group, and the dynamism that provides to our meetings and journal.  Simply put, I would like to give something back to the society if I can.  I am an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana . Before coming to the UM in 2000, I worked for many years in the non-profit sector on issues related to agriculture and food security. I did my doctoral work through the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison , where I focused on agricultural sociology and the contemporary food system.  I wrote Changing the Way America Farms:  Knowledge and Community in the Sustainable Agriculture Movement (University of Nebraska Press, 1999), and my recent scholarship focuses on the concept of food democracy.  At the UM, I have helped create an emphasis on sustainable food and farming systems within Environmental Studies. The emphasis mixes classroom learning with experiential education on a campus-community farm and through community-based action research projects.  I strive to provide opportunities for students to learn-by-doing and to contribute to the community in the process. For example, from 2002-2004, I co-facilitated a community food assessment, which was guided by a 15 member steering committee from Missoula County and involved about 50 students from Social Work and Environmental Studies in the research process.  The assessment led to the creation of a multi-stakeholder, food policy council called the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition <www.missoulacfac.org >.  I remain active in CFAC, focusing now on protecting agricultural land as the essential building block for a vibrant local food system. Since its inception in 2003, my students and I have worked closely with the UM Farm to College Program at the University Dining Services.  In 2006, ten graduate students and I completed a study of the economic, social, and transportation-related impacts of Farm to College on Montana .  The work was done in partnership with a statewide coalition called Grow Montana < www.growmontana.ncat.org >. Along with Grow Montana , I helped to create the nation's first "FoodCorps," a partnership with AmeriCorps/VISTA that places and trains volunteers at five schools and colleges in Montana to advance their farm-to-cafeteria programs.

COUNCIL:
RAYMOND ANTHONY

Raymond Anthony is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the _University of Alaska Anchorage, where he is in his fourth year. He is also an affiliate with the Department of Geography. Raymond received his PhD from Purdue University , IN , and specializes in ethical theory, and animals, environmental ethics, and food ethics, respectively.  He is also interested in philosophy of technology. Most recently, he was co-guest editor for a Special Issue on "Food and Politics," for Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (2007, 20:5), and is currently working on a book titled, "Identity and the Moral Status of Animals: Developing an Animal Ethics through the Philosophy of Technology."  He has served on national and international committees related to food ethics, including a Nordfork's funded Nordic-Baltic Network for Research and Research Training in Food and Agricultural Ethics, and USDA WCC204/WERA-Regional Coordinating Committee on Animal Bioethics. Raymond has taught at The University of British Columbia's Food and Land Systems' Animal Welfare Program, and was a faculty member of the Department of Philosophy and affiliate of the Bioethics Program at Iowa State University .  He is a member of UAA's Chancellor's Council on Sustainability.

ANDREA CRAIG

Andrea is a partner in Christy & Craig Associates.  She and Nancy Christy Heinen together and separately developed and managed four successful restaurants in Madison , Wisconsin beginning in 1974. Because of her professional interest in the relationship of local food on French cookery, Craig was an early advocate in Madison for the community's role in supporting working food farms in the region. Since 2001, the partners have turned their attention to creating restaurant and food service concepts which incorporate two social goals: intentional demand for local food, through menu and restaurant concept design; intentional inclusion of people on the margins of the workplace, especially people with disabilities. They have received a number of supporting grants which enabled them to develop a new Three Legged Stool Model to connect local farmers with area restaurants through small artisan food preservation enterprises that include people with disabilities.  In addition,  Christy and Craig are currently consulting to the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery in the development of the food-related activities for their new cutting-edge health and scientific research institutions.  Because of her interest in sustainable agriculture, Andrea began attending the Food and Society conferences in 2001 and has benefited greatly from that relationship. Andrea lives with her husband, Bruce, in Manhattan and commutes to work in Madison by internet and airplane.  She shops almost exclusively at Greenmarkets in her neighborhood and doesn't own a car.

JASON EVANS

Jason M. Evans is an interdisciplinary environmental science researcher with advanced training in systems ecology, geographic information systems, and moral theory. Jason's recent research projects include development of land use change models and environmental impact assessments for future biofuel production scenarios in the U.S., a multi-scalar evaluation of water quality protection and ecosystem management in Florida springs, and a cataloguing of local knowledge related to manatee conservation, aquatic plant management, and ecological restoration in Crystal River, Florida. A common thread among these projects - and one that underlies Jason's theoretical and practical orientation - is the use of multiple socio-ecological indicators to tease out the complex (and often hidden) moral implications of environmental policy. Jason is currently employed as a postdoctoral research associate in the University of Florida 's Department of WildlifeEcology and Conservation. He holds a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida (2007), an M.S. in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida (2002), and a B.A. in Philosophy from New College of Florida (1998).

BETTY IZUMI

Betty Izumi received her PhD from Michigan State University in 2008 where she worked and studied with the CS Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems. She received her Master's in Public Health (2000) and her Registered Dietitian (2001) credential at University of California , Berkeley and her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics at the University of British Columbia (1998). Betty's dissertation research examined the complexity of farm to school programs from the perspectives of farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors. Prior to moving to Michigan in 2004, she worked with the Oregon State University Extension Service in the Portland metro area where she collaborated with government agencies, schools, and non-profit organizations to address issues such as lack of access to healthful foods and barriers to farming among recent immigrants. Broadly, her interests include nutrition, food access, community-based food systems, sustainable agriculture, and community-based participatory research. Betty is currently a postdoctoral research fellow with the Kellogg Health Scholars Program and is at the University of Michigan School of Public Health training site.

JOANN JAFFE

JoAnn Jaffe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Studies at the University of Regina in Regina , Saskatchewan , Canada . Her recent research projects include studying the effects of neoliberalization and globalization on agricultural communities in Canada and the Global South and the construction of food knowledge across generations of female food provisioners. Recently, JoAnn was a Review Editor for the Global Volume of the International Agricultural Assessment of Science and Technology for Development. She is a former president of the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation and is on the board of the Saskatchewan Population Health Evaluation and Research Unit. During her career, JoAnn has also contributed to the  work of several NGOs including the National Farmer's Union ( Canada ), CHEP (Formerly known as the Child Hunger Education Project), Salut le Monde, and the Mouvman Peysan Papay ( Haiti ). She was the farming systems research specialist on Pwoje Sove Te, a sustainable agriculture/agroforestry project in Haiti and has also worked with universities in Costa Rica and Chile to improve their capacity to deliver courses and conduct social science research in rural and agricultural sustainability. Recent publications include: Choosing Quality: The Knowledge Intensification Shift (forthcoming); Social Cohesion, Neoliberalism and the Entrepreneurial Community in Rural Saskatchewan (American Behavioral Scientist/with Amy Quark); Victual Vicissitudes: Consumer Deskilling and the (Gendered) Transformation of Food Systems (AHV/with Michael Gertler); Farm Communities at the Crossroads (CPRC Press/ with Harry Diaz and Bob Stirling); Contesting Fundamentalisms (Fernwood Press/with Carol Schick and Ailsa Watkinson), among others. Thinking that it is an important organization especially in the way it provides a space for conversation across disciplines and  statuses, she is happy to have the chance to finally contribute to AFHVS.