Projects
I work and consult on community-based and data-driven projects focused on agriculture, food, climate, health, land conservation, community development, and more. I often work with a team, whether it’s producing a film that makes headlines, creating a new website, researching and writing presentations and reports, or delivering workshops.
Since 2018, alongside my colleagues, I’ve worked with 100+ global, national, state, and municipal organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, and several Fortune 500 companies.
Get in touch if you need support for your organizational development work, research, writing, or related efforts.
Under Contract
For the first time in a full-length documentary, contract farmers tell their stories and industry experts reveal how the corporate production model pits farmer against farmer
In the U.S. alone, 97% of the chicken produced is raised by family farmers under contract with large companies. Around the world and all across agriculture, contract farming is taking hold. Farmers who sign contracts often face unfair challenges and hidden risks under the terms offered by large firms. Under Contract investigates the exploitative “contract farming” model used by massive meat corporations in the poultry industry and the little understood fine print of modern agriculture.
Our filmmaking team was honored to contribute research and footage to a highly publicized segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on the industry.
I co-wrote and co-produced this film as part of a three-person filmmaking team. I line produced the film, worked with our animator, recorded voiceovers, managed press outreach, worked on graphic design and educational materials, built our website, and assisted with editing the trailer. Because you do a little of everything on a film with a budget of $150,000.
Media Coverage
The Guardian – Fowl play: the chicken farmers being bullied by big poultry
The New York Times – Farmers Dismayed That USDA Delays Fair Practice Rule (via the Associated Press)
Huffington Post – Trump Administration Hits Small Farmers With More Bad News
Associated Press – Chicken farmers say processors treat them like servants
Food Republic – This Film Blows The Doors Off The Chicken-Farming Industry
Bloomberg – Trump Must Choose Between Farmers and ‘Big Meat’
POLITICO – Chicken farmers hope Trump will jump on GIPSA train
NPR – After A Long Fight, New Rules Defend Small Farmers. For Now.
The Wall Street Journal – USDA Issues New Rules Aimed at Protecting Farmers
Mother Jones – Obama’s USDA Just Played Chicken With the Trump Transition Team
Growing Innovation
A crowdfunded book and online library of farmer-driven innovation
Growing Innovation grew out of a simple question: what if we gathered the stories of hundreds of farmers who’d been quietly inventing their way through two of farming’s most challenging decades yet — and made those stories useful to whoever came next?
After spending nearly five years collaborating with farmers transitioning to sustainable and organic production models while managing the Agricultural Reinvestment Fund, this project was a natural next step. The project drew on two decades of innovative farm projects and was a partnership that I led in collaboration with the open-source farming community Farm Hack.
I compiled a book focusing on eight farmer stories, created a companion online library of case studies, organized and ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, and edited our campaign video.
Media Coverage
Civil Eats — As Commodity Farmers Shift Course, A Library to Collect Their Stories
MAKE: — The Future of Farming Is Open Source (by yours truly, with thanks to the editors at MAKE: )
NCSU Poole College, Business Sustainability Collaborative — Building a Crowdfunded Library of Farmer Innovation
Food Tank — Growing Innovation in the International Year of Family Farming
Seedstock — New Book Tells of Small, Rural Farmers Beating the Odds in Tobacco Country
Treehugger — Crowdsourcing an Online Compendium of Small Farmer Innovation
TechRepublic — 10 Ways Technology Is Changing Our Food
Video/Web/Design
I’ve helped make everything from short videos helping organizations and farms tell their stories to websites designed to share unique perspectives and resources to graphic design and newsletters.
