Annie Shattuck is a policy analyst at Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. She is co-author of the new book Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice with Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel, which examines the root causes of the global food crisis and grassroots solutions to hunger springing up around the world. Her writing has appeared in publications ranging from The Nation, to Foreign Policy in Focus and Ecology and Farming, and is scattered around online media and the academic press.

Alethea is Coordinator of the Oakland Food Policy Council (OFPC), a new organization being incubated at Food First. Before starting at the OFPC in 2008, Alethea was the AgParks and Food Systems Project Manager at SAGE, where she coauthored the San Francisco Foodshed Assessment: Think Globally - Eat Locally. Alethea holds a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Her award-winning Master's thesis was entitled Repairing the Local Food System: Long Range Planning for People's Grocery.

Rowena Garcia is the public face of Food First when you call with a question or order a publication. Her many years of experience in the travel reservation business have proved to be a valuable bonus to traveling staff members.

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Telephone: 510-654-4400 ext 232.

Martha Katigbak-Fernandez is the Operations Officer at Food First. She has worked here since 1991 in a variety of positions, preferring to stay on the sidelines as her way of contributing to a better world. She is a Masters Candidate in international relations at San Francisco State University, and has her Bachelors degree in Philosophy from the University of the Philippines.

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Telephone: 510-654-4400 ext 221.

Marilyn Borchardt grew up in Wisconsin farm country in a place so rural that she remembers when their log cabin got electricity. Aunts and uncles were dairy farmers and she has many fond memories of vacations and visits to farmily farms.

Marilyn was one of the first in her extended family to attend college. After receiving her B.S. from the University of Wisconsin in home economics education (via Berea College in KY), and a M.S. from Oregon State University in textile chemistry, she worked for 14 years in child welfare in Colorado and California.

In the late 70's one of her housemates invited Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, who had founded the Institute for Food and Development Policy and written the book Food First in New York, to come to dinner soon after their move to the San Francisco Bay Area. Frances' first book, Diet for a Small Planet had already become an inspiration for many folks in the bay area including Marilyn.

Since 1986, she has been the Development Director at Food First. When new interns ask "How long have you been here at Food First," she can often smugly reply "since before you were born." This long tenure has allowed her to enjoy the thousands of letters from adoring "Food First fans," making the task of "fundraising" a most rewarding experience. In addition to her responsibilities communicating with individual donors, Marilyn has the pleasant task of working with interns and volunteers from around the world who provide valuable service to further the Institute's research and education agenda. And she does most of the web site posting and social networking for the organization. Never a dull moment at Food First and Marilyn wouldn't have it any other way.

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Telephone: 510-654-4400 ext 234.