Organic elder visiting Midwest: Grace Gershuny - Looking to connect in 2017
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Debbie Hillman
Jan 30, 2017, 9:41:02 AM1/30/17
to Advocates for Urban Agriculture, IllinoisL...@yahoogroups.com, IllinoisFar...@googlegroups.com, sustain-...@googlegroups.com, Shannon, Alan - Fns, Grace Gershuny
To:
Advocates for Urban Agriculture (Greater Chicago)
Illinois Local Food and Farms Coalition
Illinois Farmers Market Assn.
Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (national organization based in Ames, Iowa)
GoodGreens - USDA FNS Midwest Office (Alan Shannon - Public Affairs Director)
Sustain Evanston
Hi, all —
This is to introduce Grace Gershuny to food-and-farm folks in the Midwest, Illinois, Chicago, and Evanston. Grace is one of the living pioneers of the organic movement, but somehow I had not known about her until a few months ago.
MIDWEST EVENTS? Conferences, book signings, food council meeting, etc.?
Grace is from Vermont and is looking to set up a schedule of Midwest events during 2017, connected with her recently published memoir, Organic Revolutionary: A Memoir of the Movement for Real Food, Planetary Healing, & Human Liberation. No dates have been set as yet, but she is in conversation with people in Chicago, Champaign, and Indiana.
BOOKING AN EVENT
If you’re interested in hosting Grace at an event in 2017, she’d be happy to talk.
Please contact Grace directly if you are interested in booking an event or talking to her. I am copying her on this email.
Full contact information and links are attached below, including a recent radio interview.
Here’s two facts about Grace that I think will catch people’s attention:
1. Grace is the person who drafted the original USDA Organic standards. She worked on them for 7 years (starting in 1994). As such, she has personal relationships with many people in the organic movement.
2. Grace currently teaches in the Sustainable Food Systems program (on-line) at Green Mountain College (Vermont).
Grace is looking to meet people in the Midwest to talk about her experiences — and to learn as well. Her blog makes it clear that she is still working in the trenches and interested in connecting to people about:
— organic farming in the U.S.
— carbon sequestration
— working together
— public policy
— looking at system issues that have prevented widespread adoption of organic- and other forms of sustainable agriculture (e.g., money and banking, exclusion of women at the decision-making table)
If you don’t already know about Grace, attached is additional information why I think all of you might be interested in meeting her and sharing her with your customers, clients, organizations, conference attendees, etc. If you’re interested in talking with Grace, please contact her directly. (She is copied on this email, and full contact information is below.)
— Debbie
Debbie Hillman
Evanston, Illinois
FOOD, FARMS & DEMOCRACY
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ABOUT GRACE GERSHUNY & THE U.S. ORGANIC MOVEMENT
Grace was the person hired by the USDA (in 1994) to draft the first organic standards for the U.S. Her new memoir, Organic Revolutionary: A Memoir of the Movement for Real Food, Planetary Healing, & Human Liberation, is the story of why she was hand-picked to do so, how she came to be “the one” to take on that task, what happened during the seven years it took to write and pass the U.S. standards, and what’s happened since.
1. From the media kit:
Grace Gershuny, author of The Soul of Soil is excited to announce the publication of her new book, Organic Revolutionary: A Memoir of the Movement for Real Food, Planetary Healing, and Human Liberation. This story records and reflects on the history of the organic movement from its roots in indigenous practices to the back-to-the-land movement of the late 60s and 70s, and its codification in law through the USDA’s National Organic Program.
2. Radio interview (30 minutes) — about the book, about the organic movement, about this moment in time when we are at a crossroads vis-a-vis life on earth
Food Sleuth Radio KOPN (Columbia, MO)
Melinda Hemmelgarn, RD (Investigative Nutrition)
Nov. 3, 2016
3. Contact information
Organic Revolutionary: A Memoir of the Movement for Real Food, Planetary Healing, & Human Liberation
4. Table of Contents
Prologue - Summer 2015
Chapter 1 — How a City Girl Learned to Love the Dirt
Chapter 2 — Finding Soul in the Soil
Chapter 3 — Big Brother and the Organic Industry
Chapter 4 — Death and Rebirth on the National Stage
Chapter 5 — The Real Dirt on the Regulations
Chapter 6 — We Have Met the Enemy
Chapter 7 — Growing Forward
Epilogue: Advice to a Young Food Systems Activist
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