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Answers to our most frequently asked question about the program and application process

Q: What is the goal of the fellowship program?

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 change how we grow, process, eat and think about food. Our goal is to make the fellows better communicators, AND provide them with time and trainings to strengthen their individual efforts, AND get them better connected with key policymakers and media professionals.

Q: What are some of the fellows success stories?

One of our favorite success stories from recent fellows is Roger Doiron’s successful campaign to get a kitchen garden on the White House lawn. Roger used Facebook to gather over 120,000 signatures of support, which contributed to First Lady Michelle Obama’s decision to plant a garden in the spring of 2009. He built on that momentum to create another successful “Food Independence Day” campaign with a work group of other fellows.

We have countless other success stories: Deb Echmeyer and Curt Ellis used their fellowship time to develop Food Corps, a national service program focused on school gardens and farm to school programs; As part of Bryant Terry’s nationwide book tour, he focused on getting people to re-imagine healthy soul food; Ann Cooper continues to...

The recording of our December 15 webinar about the IATP Food and Society Fellows application process is now available. Please view the webinar before contacting us with
questions, and check back soon for written answers to our most
frequently asked questions! 

Jen Dalton recently did a great interview with Lisa Kivirist, who "champions the voices of women farmers and ecopreneurs from her bucolic Wisconsin bed and breakfast." Read the whole interview at Civil Eats.

What issues have you been focused on?

I work on a diversity of issues under the sustainability umbrella. My family and I run Inn Serendipity, a diversified farm and bed and breakfast and grow our own food and food for the business. We specialize in a 10-feet breakfast, from the garden to the B&B plate. We have a lot of fun creating seasonal offerings featuring seasonal garden abundance and local Wisconsin cheese. We run the farm on renewable energy and do a lot of educational outreach around sustainability and green design issues. We retrofitted an old grainary into a strawbale greenhouse, for example.

I also work in the growing movement of women in sustainable agriculture and direct the Rural Women’s Project with the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) where we do workshops , farm trainings and policy work. Next spring we’ll have the first national summit on women in sustainable agriculture, organizing around developing a collaborative platform.

My writing focuses on green business start-ups and how to craft a livelihood around...

View a portion of our December 1 Webinar

Last month, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan to seek federal permission to bar  the city's 1.7 million recipients of food stamp (now known as SNAP) benefits from purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages. The proposed ban would be for two years, with assessment to determine whether it should be made permanent. New York City's SNAP recipients spend an estimated $75 million to $135 million of their $2.7 billion in food stamps annually on soda, though this figure is contested by some advocates.

The controversial plan has surfaced differences in perspective between anti-hunger groups who believe food stamp recipients deserve the freedom to spend their benefits as they see fit, and public health advocates concerned about obesity, who see an opportunity to discourage consumption of high-calorie beverages that contribute to that problem

Both anti-hunger and public health groups want to see Americans - especially lower income Americans -- eat more and healthier food. Can common ground be found to achieve that broader goal?  Does the New York City proposal present a hurdle to the health and hunger communities building a united front against a food system that has left many Americans both obese and undernourished? Can reasoned discussion create this united movement as Congress moves to reauthorize both...