National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

Staff

Deborah Burd, Executive Director
Sheilah Davidson, Administrative Director

Consultants

Margaret Krome, Agricultural Appropriations
(While not an employee, Margaret works closely with the National Campaign Board and staff, with oversight from the NCSA Appropriations Committee, to mobilize our partner organizations and grassroots action network on appropriations work.)
Annette Higby, Policy Advisory Coordinator
Devin Ceartas, Webmaster and Technology Consultant
Reba Richardson, Field Organizer
Billie Best, Marketing Consultant

Deborah Burd - Executive Director

Deborah M. Burd Deborah M. Burd is the Executive Director of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA). The NCSA is dedicated to educating the public on the importance of a sustainable food and agriculture system that is economically viable, environmentally sound, socially just, and humane. She has recently finished a decade of community based work in western Maine. She is a graduate of the University of Maine, with a background in education. She resides in Portland, Maine.

Since 1998 Deb has conducted trainings and studied in Central Europe. She is a founding member of the Maine Women's Agricultural Network, the Sustainable Development Working Group, and GrowSmart Maine. Deb has served as the vice-chair of the Maine Rural Development Council, HealthReach Community Health Centers, on an advisory committee to Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and as a trustee of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. In 2003 she was a national finalist for the Ford Foundation's, Leadership for a Changing World program.

Deb currently serves on the executive committee of GrowSmart Maine, the board of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., the Spannocchia Foundation, and as a grants advisor for Maine Initiatives, Harvest Fund.

Reba Richardson—Field Organizer

Reba Richardson worked from 1998 to 2002 doing new and internal organizing with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union in Connecticut. Her primary focus was organizing the workers at Foxwoods Casino, where she gained experience against a large, politically connected, and enormously wealthy opponent.

In 2002 Reba moved with her husband to Midcoast Maine, where she went to work at a number of local farms. In 2004 she and her husband started their own vegetable and sheep operation, Hatchet Cove Farm, a certified organic farm that now has seventy-five CSA members, a farm stand, and numerous wholesale accounts. Reba grew up in Portland, Maine and attended Wesleyan University, graduating in 1998 with a degree in Anthropology. She now lives and farms in Warren, Maine, with her husband, Bill, and their two-year-old son, Elias.

Sheilah Davidson - Administrative Director

Sheilah Davidson has spent over twenty years as an activist. Her passion is working with organizations that support people in their work toward self-determined solutions. She earned a degree in Social Work from San Jose State University and has completed many training sessions related to organizing and fundraising. She has extensive administrative experience, both as the director of a program and as a support person within an initiative. Additionally, much of her education and work background is in leadership development and training, community organizing and fundraising, involving a broad range of issues. She enjoys using her skills to advance organizations that are doing meaningful work.

Margaret Krome - Agricultural Appropriations

Margaret Krome is the Policy Program Director the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute and coordinates the annual national grassroots campaign to fund federal programs supported by the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. Over a number of years, she has helped create and sustain funding for a number of state initiatives in Wisconsin, supporting environmentally sound, profitable, and socially responsible agriculture, including the UW-Madison's' Center for Integrated Agriculture and the Pesticide Use and Risk Reduction project. In addition to policy work, she conducts workshops nationwide on grant writing and using federal programs to support sustainable agriculture. She also works with others in the Madison, Wisconsin area to foster close marketing relationships between consumers and locally environmentally sound farmers. Krome served the Wisconsin Rural Development Center for 9 years before joining Michael Fields in 1995. She writes a bi-weekly editorial column for the evening daily paper, The Capital Times, in Madison, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Annette Higby - Policy Advisory Coordinator

Annette Higby is a consultant who staffs the National Campaign's Policy Advisory Committee. Ms. Higby worked for the Center for Rural Affairs from 1980 through 1993 on a wide range of policy issues affecting rural communities including agricultural credit, federal farm programs and international agricultural trade and development. A lawyer by training, she has specialized in providing legal services and community legal education to farmers. She handled farm debt restructuring cases for the Legal Aid Society of Northeast Nebraska during the farm crisis of the mid 1980s. Since moving to Vermont in 1996 her practice has focused on generational farm transfer and new farm business formation. She lives with her husband Marty Strange and their son, Ben in Randolph, Vermont.

Devin Ceartas, NacreData L.L.C. - Webmaster and Technology Consultant

Devin is the owner of NacreData L.L.C., an internet development company. He helped develop and currently maintains our website, as well as designing the Sustainable Agriculture Movement Database. Before starting NacreData, Devin worked as the Network Support Coordinator for the forest protection group Heartwood, and he remains active on many environmental and social issues.

Billie Best — Marketing Consultant
Billie Best has been working as a marketing consultant for organizations of all sizes, local and global, for almost thirty years. She began her career in the music business, moved on to retail and publishing, and then to technology, finance and consumer packaged goods. She was an early pioneer of the Worldwide Web, developing software applications for advertising agencies, marketing departments, and digital imaging businesses, in addition to designing the interface and content architecture for many, many websites, including this one for the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. In 1999, she moved from Boston to a small farm in Western Massachusetts to be closer to her New York based clients. The farm inspired her to study agriculture, become involved in the sustainability movement, and learn to farm.
www.billiebest.com