April, 21 2011, 11:19am EDT
IATP Announces the 2011-2013 Food and Community Fellows
14 fellows reflect a diversity of community-led initiatives around the country
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) is pleased to announce the selection of 14 new Food and Community Fellows. The 2011-2013 class of fellows is a mix of grassroots advocates, thought leaders, writers and entrepreneurs. You can see the full class below and at foodandcommunityfellows.org.
The two-year fellowship provides an annual stipend of $35,000 in addition to communications support, trainings and travel. The program supports leaders working to create a food system that strengthens the health of communities, particularly children. For this class of fellows, a selection committee focused on work that creates a just, equitable and healthy food system from its roots up. Over 560 individuals applied for fellowships.
"We had more than three times the number of applicants of previous classes. Such a talented and diverse pool of people working for food systems change was exciting and challenging for our selection committee and application readers. We look forward to this class building on the great work of previous classes," said IATP's Mark Muller. "The six-person selection committee provided a diversity of expertise and perspective that was essential for the decision-making process."
"This new group of fellows parallels their predecessors in skill, capacity and experience," says Keecha Harris, a food systems and public health expert, member of the very first fellowship class and member of the selection committee. "The selection process demonstrates that this country has a cadre of profoundly dedicated individuals committed to better food in their communities and improved food policies in all levels of government." The new class of fellows represents work from Bainbridge Island, Washington to west Georgia, and from southern New Mexico to Queens, New York.
Another selection committee member, August Schumacher, former USDA Undersecretary of Farm and Agriculture Services agrees. "The caliber of the final awardees reflects extraordinary capabilities, outstanding and innovative proposals, and plain hard work," Schumacher says.
"The Food and Community Fellows have always been change agents," says Jim Harkness, President of IATP." We invest in individuals that have a vision and plan for bettering the food system. These fellowships aren't about incremental change; we want big visions that have the potential to provide our children with new opportunities for growing, processing, eating and thinking about food."
The Food and Community Fellows program is generously funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich. and the Woodcock Foundation, based in New York, New York.
To follow the work of the new class of IATP Food and Community Fellows, visit our website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
##
Class VIII IATP Food and Community Fellows
2011-2013
Brahm Ahmadi, founder of People's Grocery and CEO of People's Community Market in Oakland, is a social entrepreneur redesigning food retail to better engage, serve and support food desert communities.
Jane Black is a Brooklyn-based food writer who covers food politics, trends and sustainability issues.
Don Bustos is a traditional farmer in New Mexico working on issues of land and water rights using community-based approaches and providing farmer-to-farmer training.
Cheryl Danley, an Academic Specialist with the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University in East Lansing, engages with communities to strengthen their access to fresh, locally grown, healthy and affordable food.
Nina Kahori Fallenbaum, the Washington, DC-based food and agriculture editor of Hyphen magazine, uses independent media to engage Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in local and national food policy.
Kelvin Graddick, a west Georgia-based, fair food system advocate, manages a cooperative that maintains a local sustainable food system, promotes healthy living, builds cultural and economic knowledge, and creates economic opportunities.
Haile Johnston, a Philadelphia-based social entrepreneur, works to improve the vitality of rural and urban communities through food system connectivity and policy change.
Jenga Mwendo, a community organizer based in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, focuses on strengthening community through urban agriculture.
Raj Patel, a writer, academic and activist in San Francisco, works in support of Food Sovereignty in the US and the Global South through advocacy, analysis and protest.
Kimberly Seals Allers, an award-winning, Queens-based journalist and author, is the leading voice of the African American motherhood experience and a champion for children through her work advocating for improved maternal and infant health and increased breastfeeding in the black community.
Valerie Segrest, a member of the Muckleshoot Tribe outside of Seattle, works as a Community Nutritionist and Native Foods Educator to create a culturally appropriate system of health through traditional foods and medicines.
Kandace Vallejo, a staff member at Austin, Texas-based Proyecto Defensa Laboral/Workers Defense Project, coordinates the organization's Youth Empowerment Program, where she works with low-income, first-generation Latino youth and their families to educate, organize, and take action to create a more just and equitable food system for workers and consumers alike.
Rebecca Wiggins-Reinhard works with La Semilla Food Center to improve access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate foods in the Paso del Norte region of southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.
Malik Kenyatta Yakini, an activist and educator, is Interim Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, chairs the Detroit Food Policy Council and serves on the facilitation team of Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System.
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.
LATEST NEWS
National Team Member Becomes at Least 265th Palestinian Footballer Killed by Israel in Gaza
Muhannad al-Lili's killing by Israeli airstrike came as the world mourned the death of Portugal and Liverpool star Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva in a car crash in Spain.
Jul 04, 2025
Muhannad Fadl al-Lili, captain of the Al-Maghazi Services Club and a member of Palestine's national football team, died Thursday from injuries suffered during an Israeli airstrike on his family home in the central Gaza Strip earlier this week, making him the latest of hundreds of Palestinian athletes killed since the start of Israel's genocidal onslaught.
Al-Maghazi Services Club announced al-Lili's death in a Facebook tribute offering condolences to "his family, relatives, friends, and colleagues" and asking "Allah to shower him with his mercy."
The Palestine Football Association (PFA) said that "on Monday, a drone fired a missile at Muhannad's room on the third floor of his house, which led to severe bleeding in the skull."
"During the war of extermination against our people, Muhannad tried to travel outside Gaza to catch up with his wife, who left the strip for Norway on a work mission before the outbreak of the war," the association added. "But he failed to do so, and was deprived of seeing his eldest son, who was born outside the Gaza Strip."
According to the PFA, al-Lili is at least the 265th Palestinian footballer and 585th athlete to be killed by Israeli forces since they launched their assault and siege on Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Sports journalist Leyla Hamed says 439 Palestinian footballers have been killed by Israel.
Overall, Israel's war—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case—has left more than 206,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to Gaza officials.
The Palestine Chronicle contrasted the worldwide press coverage of the car crash deaths of Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva with the media's relative silence following al-Lili's killing.
"Jota's death was a tragedy that touched millions," the outlet wrote. "Yet the death of Muhannad al-Lili... was met with near-total silence from global sports media."
Last week, a group of legal experts including two United Nations special rapporteurs appealed to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the world football governing body, demanding that its Governance Audit and Compliance Committee take action against the Israel Football Association for violating FIFA rules by playing matches on occupied Palestinian territory.
In July 2024, the ICJ found that Israel's then-57-year occupation of Palestine—including Gaza—is an illegal form of apartheid that should be ended as soon as possible.
During their invasion and occupation of Gaza, Israeli forces have also used sporting facilities including Yarmouk Stadium for the detention of Palestinian men, women, and children—many of whom have reported torture and other abuse at the hands of their captors.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Highly Inspiring' Court Ruling Affirms Nations' Legal Duty to Combat Climate Emergency
"While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections," said one observer.
Jul 04, 2025
In a landmark advisory opinion published Thursday, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—of which the United States, the world's second-biggest carbon polluter, is not a member—affirmed the right to a stable climate and underscored nations' duty to act to protect it and address the worsening planetary emergency.
"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change," a summary of the 234-page ruling states. "Any rollback of climate or environmental policies that affect human rights must be exceptional, duly justified based on objective criteria, and comply with standards of necessity and proportionality."
"The court also held that... states must take all necessary measures to reduce the risks arising, on the one hand, from the degradation of the global climate system and, on the other, from exposure and vulnerability to the effects of such degradation," the summary adds.
"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change."
The case was brought before the Costa-Rica based IACtHR by Chile and Colombia, both of which "face the daily challenge of dealing with the consequences of the climate emergency, including the proliferation of droughts, floods, landslides, and fires, among others."
"These phenomena highlight the need to respond urgently and based on the principles of equity, justice, cooperation, and sustainability, with a human rights-based approach," the court asserted.
IACtHR President Judge Nancy Hernández López said following the ruling that "states must not only refrain from causing significant environmental damage but have the positive obligation to take measures to guarantee the protection, restoration, and regeneration of ecosystems."
"Causing massive and irreversible environmental harm...alters the conditions for a healthy life on Earth to such an extent that it creates consequences of existential proportions," she added. "Therefore, it demands universal and effective legal responses."
The advisory opinion builds on two landmark decisions last year. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings to rapidly phase out fossil fuel production.
The following month, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found in an advisory opinion that greenhouse gas emissions are marine pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and that signatories to the accord "have the specific obligation to adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control" them.
The IACtHR advisory opinion is expected to boost climate and human rights lawsuits throughout the Americas, and to impact talks ahead of November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil.
Climate defenders around the world hailed Thursday's advisory opinion, with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calling it "a landmark step forward for the region—and beyond."
"As the impact of climate change becomes ever more visible across the world, the court is clear: People have a right to a stable climate and a healthy environment," Türk added. "States have a bedrock obligation under international law not to take steps that cause irreversible climate and environmental damage, and they have a duty to act urgently to take the necessary measures to protect the lives and rights of everyone—both those alive now and the interests of future generations."
Amnesty International head of strategic litigation Mandi Mudarikwa said, "Today, the Inter-American Court affirmed and clarified the obligations of states to respect, ensure, prevent, and cooperate in order to realize human rights in the context of the climate crisis."
"Crucially, the court recognized the autonomous right to a healthy climate for both individuals and communities, linked to the right to a healthy environment," Mudarikwa added. "The court also underscored the obligation of states to protect cross-border climate-displaced persons, including through the issuance of humanitarian visas and protection from deportation."
Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "this opinion sets an important precedent affirming that governments have a legal duty to regulate corporate conduct that drives climate harm."
"Though the United States is not a party to the treaty governing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, this opinion should be a clarion call for transnational fossil fuel companies that have deceived the public for decades about the risks of their products," Merner added. "The era of accountability is here."
Markus Gehring, a fellow and director of studies in law at Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge in England, called the advisory opinion "highly inspiring" and "seminal."
Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans at Earthjustice, said that "the Inter-American Court's ruling makes clear that climate change is an overriding threat to human rights in the world."
"Governments must act to cut carbon emissions drastically," Caputo stressed. "While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections for all from the realities of climate harm."
Climate litigation is increasing globally in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. In the Americas, Indigenous peoples, children, and green groups are among those who have been seeking climate justice via litigation.
However, in the United States, instead of acknowledging the climate emergency, President Donald Trump has declared an "energy emergency" while pursuing a "drill, baby, drill" policy of fossil fuel extraction and expansion.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Admin Quietly Approves Massive Crude Oil Expansion Project
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest," said one environmental attorney.
Jul 04, 2025
The Trump administration has quietly fast-tracked a massive oil expansion project that environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers warned could have a destructive impact on local communities and the climate.
As reported recently by the Oil and Gas Journal, the plan "involves expanding the Wildcat Loadout Facility, a key transfer point for moving Uinta basin crude oil to rail lines that transport it to refineries along the Gulf Coast."
The goal of the plan is to transfer an additional 70,000 barrels of oil per day from the Wildcat Loadout Facility, which is located in Utah, down to the Gulf Coast refineries via a route that runs along the Colorado River. Controversially, the Trump administration is also plowing ahead with the project by invoking emergency powers to address energy shortages despite the fact that the United States for the last couple of years has been producing record levels of domestic oil.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) issued a joint statement condemning the Trump administration's push to approve the project while rushing through environmental impact reviews.
"The Bureau of Land Management's decision to fast-track the Wildcat Loadout expansion—a project that would transport an additional 70,000 barrels of crude oil on train tracks along the Colorado River—using emergency procedures is profoundly flawed," the Colorado Democrats said. "These procedures give the agency just 14 days to complete an environmental review—with no opportunity for public input or administrative appeal—despite the project's clear risks to Colorado. There is no credible energy emergency to justify bypassing public involvement and environmental safeguards. The United States is currently producing more oil and gas than any country in the world."
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management announced the completion of its accelerated environmental review of the project, drawing condemnation from climate advocates.
Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, described the administration's rush to approve the project as "pure hubris," especially given its "refusal to hear community concerns about oil spill risks." She added that "this fast-tracked review breezed past vital protections for clean air, public safety and endangered species."
Landon Newell, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, accused the Trump administration of manufacturing an energy emergency to justify plans that could have a dire impact on local habitats.
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest by authorizing the transport of more than 1 billion gallons annually of additional oil on railcars traveling alongside the Colorado River," he said. "Any derailment and oil spill would have a devastating impact on the Colorado River and the communities and ecosystems that rely upon it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular