Eric Holt-Gimenez | Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy (original) (raw)
Email Eric Holt-Gimenez: eholtgim at foodfirst.org
Telephone: 510-654-4400 ext 227
Eric Holt-Giménez assumed the position of executive director of FoodFirst/Institute for Food and Development Policy on July 17, 2006. Eric is the author of the latest Food First Book, Campesino a Campesino: Voices from Latin America’s Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture which chronicles the development of this movement in Mexico and Central America over two and a half decades. Eric worked with farmers, participated in their farmer-to-farmer trainings, and recorded their triumphs with his camera and pen. This engaging new book is the product of that longitudinal participatory research.
Eric comes to us from the Bank Information Center in Washington D.C. where he has served as the Latin America Program Manager. After spending more than two decades in Central America, Eric returned to the University of California at Santa Cruz to complete a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies in 2002.
In 1996 we released a shorter Food First Development Report by Eric titled The Campesino a Campesino Movement: Farmer-Led, Sustainable Agriculture in Central America and Mexico. Eric continued his work with these farmers as part of his Ph.D. A measure of Eric’s dedication to sharing the lessons of this movement has been his eagerness to translate his Ph.D. study into this new book that can now be shared with students, environmentalists, activists, and scientists who seek to understand how local work is affected by global decisions and what lessons can be learned from these farmer- trainers. In Eric’s words “successful social movements are formed by integrating activism with livelihoods. These integrated movements create the deep sustained social pressure that produces political will—the key to changing the financial, governmental, and market structures that presently work against sustainability.”