Reframing Food and Farming Narratives – 2021 Virtual Annual Conference

Resilient food and farm systems provide widespread benefits for all. And effective communication can create social change that makes good farming practices more possible, more profitable, better understood and more widespread. The Food and Farming Narrative Project aims to create a narrative that advances public understanding of food and farming practices, leading to more sustainable food systems. Learn about the research this multi-year project has unearthed, as well as tools to frame conversations toward positive change.

• Michael Rozyne has been a marketer of small-farm products and a trailblazer in the Good Food Movement for more than three decades. He is co-founded Equal Exchange, the first U.S. fair trade coffee company; and in 1996, he started Red Tomato, a regional food system distributor and nonprofit. Michael is Red Tomato’s evangelist and head of new initiatives, and he speaks and writes widely on regional food systems, food narrative and the joys of fresh produce.
• For over 40 years, Susan Futrell has been involved in food and sustainable agriculture in Iowa and nationally, working in distribution, sales and marketing. She is the author of “Good Apples – Behind Every Bite,” a non-fiction introspective about commercial apple production. She is also director of marketing for Red Tomato, a nonprofit working with fruit and vegetable growers and regional food systems.
• Julie Sweetland is a sociolinguist and senior advisor at the FrameWorks Institute, where she leads efforts to bring the organization’s cutting-edge, evidence-based reframing recommendations to issues throughout the nonprofit sector, including public health, childhood education and climate science.