Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership 2021/2022 Cohort

We are thrilled to announce Arizona State University’s Food Policy & Sustainability Leadership 2021-2022 class. With a commitment to shaping food and farm policy in the public interest, this cohort of leaders hail from across the country including Arizona, North Carolina, Kansas City, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Missouri, and Montana.

In March of 2021, the Biden Administration put forth a proposal called the American Jobs Plan, a bill that focuses on revitalizing the American economy and job creation by investing in American infrastructure.

On Wednesday morning, we changed things up by hearing from a panel of non-governmental organization leaders. The panel was headed by Ann Mills, the Executive Director at Agua Fund, Michael Fernandez, the founding director at AAAS Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues (AAAS EPI Center), and Ferd Hoefner, who consults with multiple organizations on behalf of federal farm policy issues.

Students were eager and ready to dive in on the first morning of the ASU Food Policy Certificate Capstone Immersive in DC. Fortunately, the lineup of speakers that morning was an engaging and impressive bunch, all ready to share diverse perspectives to paint a picture of their current and past work in food and agriculture. 

As Swette Center certificate students, we have the pleasure of receiving The Hagstrom Report in our email inbox daily to stay up-to-date on the inside scoop of DC Agricultural politics and news.

Jocelyn Brown Hall—Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Liaison Office for North America—joined the ASU Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership Cohort for a wide-ranging discussion about advancing sustainable, resilient agriculture and food systems around the world to achieve food security.

During a Wednesday panel of our D.C. immersive, we had the privilege of hearing from food industry executives, all of whom have significant experience in government. Interestingly, none of them spoke exclusively about the positive work their companies are doing at present. Instead, what seemed to motivate them was the need for change – both at their companies and in the food and agriculture sector more broadly. It was clear that they saw the opportunity to lead through that change from their role in the private sector.

On a beautiful sunny day during ASU’s Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership immersive week, the founder and CEO of Wellfound Foods, Sarah Frimpong, joined us to talk about their local business and how they are transforming the food world in DC. There was a need for better packed food in a small café on Capitol Hill and they wanted to create the difference.

Throughout our immersive, we heard from a diverse array of speakers, representing various facets of the food system. From the Agricultural Marketing Service and Agricultural Research Service within the USDA and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to NGO and food industry leaders, these three messages were repeated.

When schools closed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, many students across the country lost the reliable meal sources that they would typically receive at school or through other child-care programs.

Our cohort spoke with Robert Bonnie, President Biden’s nominee to be Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, on a sunny Friday, July 23, 2021. The conversation was remote, as things tend to be nowadays, and Robert Bonnie spoke to us from his office at USDA. 

On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 21, the Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership Cohort took a much-anticipated trip off of ASU’s DC campus. The entourage embarked on a refreshing stroll down K Street to the Washington DC office of Dentons Law Firm, one of 204 locations worldwide that serve to build agile, tailored solutions to meet the local, national, and global needs of private and public clients of any size.