Past Events

Farm Bill Policy Roundtable

By May 30, 2023June 27th, 2023No Comments

Tuesday, May 30th at 1 p.m. ET

As you may know, The Farm Bill is a huge opportunity that only comes around every five years. The Farm Bill is set to be reauthorized in 2023, which means it’s time to ask – What’s in it for Appalachia? 

ReImagine Appalachia has been working with dozens of partners across the region to shape our 2023 Appalachian Farm Bill Platform.

These priorities — including a strong modernized Civilian Conservation Corps, expanding nutritional benefits for families and making them easier to access, improving soil health to reduce flooding, and providing more opportunities for small farmers and women and minority owned farmers — are uniquely important for Appalachia, and show the breadth of policies included in the Farm Bill. 

We are also advocating to make sure the Inflation Reduction Act provisions are protected within this bill.

This event was moderated by Jessica Arriens, Senior Program Manager, Climate & Energy of the National Wildlife Federation.

Speakers included:

  • Bishop Marcia Dinkins, Founder and Executive Director of the Black Appalachian Coalition 
  • Lindsey Shapiro, Farm Bill Campaign Organizer, Pasa Sustainable Agriculture
  • Florence Fagan French, Senior Regional Organizer, Bread for the World
  • Kimberly Ishmael, Policy Campaign Coordinator, Community Farm Alliance
  • Jared Melville, Policy Associate, American Flood Coalition




Take Action:

  • First, if you are a member of an organization, you can sign onto our Farm Bill Priorities Letter. This is for organizations and elected officials only.

  • If you are an individual, we also have you covered. You can click here and you’ll be able to send your legislator an email going over the seven priorities we listed during the Farm Bill workshop today.



Presentations:




Resources shared during presentation:

  • Food swamps: Bread for the World defines “food swamps” as communities that have an abundance of dollar stores, dollar general, etc but no stores or farmers market with fruits and vegetables