We need a hero! You won’t catch the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s (NSAC) Senior Strategic Advisor Ferd Hoefner riding a tractor to victory the way Kevin Bacon did in Footloose, but you will find him working hard every day for America’s family farmers and food producers.

Ferd was recently awarded the North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (NCR-SARE) Hero award, and he accepted the prize at this week’s NCR-SARE Administrative Council meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ferd was honored with two other friends of NSAC, Margaret Krome of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute and Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, formerly of the Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Network, who also received the NCR-SARE award.

Coordinated by the NCR-SARE Alumni Organization, the NCR-SARE Hero Recognition honors individuals who 1) have provided service to NCR-SARE or national SARE, 2) have shown leadership in sustainable agriculture locally and regionally, and 3) have made lasting impacts on sustainability in the North Central Region.

Over the past four decades, Ferd has worked with dozens of organizations in the North Central Region and helped them to be better advocates for federal agriculture policy that is good for farmers, good for the land, and good for the public. Over 30 years ago, Ferd championed the legislation that led to the development SARE program (as well as the legislation that created its forerunner, the “LISA program”). Through the annual appropriations process, Ferd has worked tirelessly with NSAC members and allies to ensure that SARE has the funding it needs to continue supporting ground-breaking, farmer-led research projects across the country. Though Ferd’s accomplishments are truly too many to list, we at NSAC are thrilled to at least be able to celebrate this honor on our blog, as well as the lifetime of work that our personal hero has done in the name of sustainable agriculture.