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listen to NESAWG's keynote speaker jim hightower on young farmers and local fish

Posted: November 9 2014
via nesawg.org

JIM HIGHTOWER

America’s #1 Populist and Food System Reformer, to speak at
NESAWG’s It Takes A Region Conference: Region-Sizing: Making It Work!
November 11 – 12, 2014

Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and New York Times best-selling author Jim Hightower will be the keynote speaker at the 2014 It Takes a Region Conference, the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group’s annual gathering at the Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs, NY on the evening of Tuesday, November 11, 2014.
Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and longtime food systems advocate, Hightower has spent four decades battling on behalf of farmers, consumers, working families, environmentalists and small businesses.  Early in his career he co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy before serving as director of the Texas Consumer Association and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner.  Hightower has became known as "America's most popular populist," developing his radio commentaries, hosting two radio talk shows, writing books, launching his newsletter, giving fiery speeches coast to coast, and otherwise speaking out for the American majority that's being locked out economically and politically by the elites.
Hightower will issue a rallying cry for collaboration and change at the 2014 It Takes a Region Conference, a convening of hundreds of farm and food system practicioners from NY to WV and all across New England. Each year, NESAWG, a 12-state network of over 500 participating organizations working to build a more vibrant, sustainable food system in the Northeast, unites hundreds of farm and food system practitioners and allies at this conference.  The theme this year is Region-Sizing: Making It Work – an exploration of how a stronger, more resilient food system is not only being envisioned, but being built by farmers and food hubs, market innovators and university professors, farmworkers, science writers, and so many other practicioners.
Hightower’s populist stance will fortify NESAWG’s commitment to raise issues of race and equity throughout the conference’s workshops and plenary sessions. In addition to Hightower’s keynote, highlights of this year’s conference will include workshops exploring the impact of international trade policies on regional food systems, the connections between hydrofracking, farms and food, and a food censorship plenary.  This plenary will feature leading journalists, science writers, and researchers investigating suppressed food and ag stories and what we can do to demand that the truth be told.
To listen to some Hightower's latest food-related commentaries, click the links below:

To learn more about the conference click HERE