Keynote Speakers

Frances Moore Lappé is the author or co-author of 19 books about world hunger, living democracy, and the environment, beginning with the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. Her fall 2017 book is Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want coauthored with Adam Eichen. About Daring Democracy, Booklist (the American Library Association's book review magazine) writes

 

“Countering what they call a well-entrenched ‘Anti-Democracy Movement,’ the authors offer numerous solutions for its antithesis, a democracy-proud confluence of grassroots efforts... With specific plans of action and encouraging words of support, Lappé and Eichen extend concrete hope to those who feel politically helpless.” 

Other recent works include World Hunger: 10 Myths and EcoMind. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., describes Diet for a Small Planet as “one of the most influential political tracts of the times." In 2008, it was selected as one of 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World by members of the Women's National Book Association. Frances was also named by Gourmet Magazine as one of 25 people (including Thomas Jefferson, Upton Sinclair, and Julia Child), whose work has changed the way America eats. Her books have been translated into 15 languages and are used widely in university courses.

 

Frances makes frequent media appearances. Most notably she has been featured on the Today Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Fox News' Fox & Friends, WSJ.com, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 'The National', Frost Over the World, NPR, and the BBC, among other news outlets. Frances also appears frequently as a public speaker and is a contributor to Huffington Post and BillMoyers.com. She is also a contributing editor at Yes! Magazine and Solutions Journal. Articles featuring or written by Frances have also appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper's, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, People, and more.

 

In 2011, EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want won a silver award from the Independent Publishers Association. In 2008, Getting a Grip along with Diet for a Small Planet were designated as "must reads" for the next U.S. president (by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan, respectively) in The New York Times Sunday Review of Books. In 2007, Getting a Grip was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller and received the Nautilus Gold/ "Best in Small Press" award. Other recent books include Hope's Edge (written with Anna Lappé), and Democracy's Edge, and You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. 

 

In 1987 Frances received the Right Livelihood Award (considered an "Alternative Nobel") "for revealing the political and economic causes of world hunger and how citizens can help to remedy them." Frances is also the recipient of 18 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions, including The University of Michigan. In 1985, she was a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, Berkeley and from 2000 to 2001, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2008 she received the James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year Award for her lifelong impact on the way people all over the world think about food, nutrition, and agriculture.

 

Other notable awards include the International Studies Association's 2009 Outstanding Public Scholar Award, and in 2011, the Nonino Prize in Italy for her life's work. In 2007 Frances became a founding member of the World Future Council, based in Hamburg, Germany. Frances also serves on the National Advisory Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists, on the International Board of Advisors of Grassroots International and on the Value [the] Meal Advisory Board of Corporate Accountability International. She is also a member of the Sisters on the Planet network, part of Oxfam America.

 

Frances is the cofounder of three organizations, including Oakland based think tank Food First and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. Frances and her daughter have also cofounded the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide.

Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author, a respected advocate for sustainability and justice along the food chain and an advisor to funders investing in food system transformation. A recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award, Anna is the co-author or author of three books and the contributing author to more than a dozen others. Anna’s work has been translated internationally and featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Gourmet, Oprah Magazine, among many other outlets.

Named one of TIME’s “eco” Who’s-Who, Anna is the founder or co-founder of three national organizations, including the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund, which she launched with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé. She currently leads Real Food Media, based at Corporate Accountability International, which she founded to bring together leading food and farm organizations to produce powerful communications initiatives to inspire, educate and grow the movement for sustainable food and farming. Since its founding in 2012, Real Food Media has created the world’s largest short films competition on food with pop-up festivals around the world, collaborated with the award-winning StoryCorps to elevate voices of food workers, produced powerful mythbusting videos viewed more than one million times, launched a national online book club #RealFoodReads, and helped support passage of good food purchasing policies nationwide.

In addition to her philanthropy through the Small Planet Fund, Anna is the director of the Food & Democracy program of the Panta Rhea Foundation and is an active participant of several funder collaboratives building more just and sustainable food systems worldwide.

 

Anna’s most recent book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It (Bloomsbury), was named by Booklist and Kirkus as one of the best environmental books of the year. Anna is also the co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (Penguin) and Hope’s Edge (Penguin), which chronicles grassroots solutions to hunger around the world. In addition to her books, Anna’s opinion writing has appeared in publications around the world, including The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The New York Times and more. She has written a regular column for Al Jazeera America and Earth Island Journal and has been a guest editor for special editions on food for The Nation.

Anna is a frequent guest on nationally syndicated radio shows and has appeared on dozens of radio programs and podcasts, including National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, and The Diane Rehm Show. Anna was the co-host of the public television series, The Endless Feast and has been a featured expert on PBS’s Need to Knowand Nourish and the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet.

 

In 2001, with her mother Frances Moore Lappé, Anna co-founded the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, an international network for research and popular education about the root causes of hunger and poverty. The Lappés are also co-founders of the Small Planet Fund, which has raised and given away more than $1 million for democratic social movements worldwide, two of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize since the Fund’s founding in 2002.     

 

A frequent public speaker and event emcee, in the past fifteen years Anna has participated in more than 600 events, from keynoting community food festivals to delivering guest lectures at universities to hosting a food-focused fundraiser at Sotheby’s. She has been a guest lecturer at dozens of colleges and universities, including Boston College, Brown University, Columbia University, New York University, Northwestern University, Wesleyan, Vassar, the University of California at Berkeley, and Yale University.

 

Anna’s writing and advocacy have earned her numerous accolades. In addition to her James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, Anna has been featured as a food fighter in The New York Times and received the Compassion in Action Award from the Missing Peace Project.

 

Anna holds an M.A. in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and graduated with honors from Brown University. From 2004 to 2006, she was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a national program of the WK Kellogg Foundation. She is an active board member of Rainforest Action Network and the Mesa Refuge, a writer’s retreat in Point Reyes, California.

 

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters, Anna has conducted research on food and sustainability across the United States and in more than 20 countries worldwide, including South Korea, China, Bangladesh, India, France, Poland, Italy, Mali, Kenya, Brazil and Turkey.

 

You can see Anna talk about food and empathy in her TEDxBerkeleypresentation and about the dangers of marketing junk food to children in her TEDxManhattan speech.