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People of Color Caucus | Keynote Speaker Jim Hightower 

2014 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: JIM HIGHTOWER

Watch America’s #1 Populist and Food System Reformer’s Keynote Address at our 2014 It Takes A Region Conference: Region-Sizing

Watch the first half of Hightower’s address above or here, and click here to view the second half of the address.

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and New York Times best-selling author Jim Hightower was the keynote speaker at the 2014 It Takes a Region Conference, the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group’s annual gathering at the Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs, NY, on the evening of Tuesday, November 11, 2014.

IF WILL ROGERS AND MOTHER JONES HAD A BABY, JIM HIGHTOWER WOULD BE THAT RAMBUNCTIOUS CHILD — MAD AS HELL, WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR.

~ MOLLY IVINS, POLITICAL COLUMNIST

Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and longtime food systems advocate, Hightower has spent four decades battling on behalf of farmers, consumers, working families, environmentalists and small businesses.  Early in his career he co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy before serving as director of the Texas Consumer Association and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner.  Hightower has became known as “America’s most popular populist,” developing his radio commentaries, hosting two radio talk shows, writing books, launching his newsletter, giving fiery speeches coast to coast, and otherwise speaking out for the American majority that’s being locked out economically and politically by the elites.

Hightower issued a rallying cry for collaboration and change at the 2014 It Takes a Region Conference, a convening of hundreds of farm and food system practitioners from NY to WV and all across New England. Each year, NESAWG, a 12-state network of over 500 participating organizations working to build a more vibrant, sustainable food system in the Northeast, unites hundreds of farm and food system practitioners and allies at this conference.  The 2014 theme was Region-Sizing: Making It Work – an exploration of how a stronger, more resilient food system is not only being envisioned, but being built by farmers and food hubs, market innovators and university professors, farmworkers, science writers, and so many other practitioners. 

Hightower’s populist stance fortified NESAWG’s commitment to raise issues of race and equity throughout the conference’s workshops and plenary sessions. In addition to Hightower’s keynote, highlights of our 2014 conference included workshops exploring the impact of international trade policies on regional food systems, the connections between hydrofracking, farms and food, and a food censorship plenary. 

To listen to some Hightower’s food-related commentaries, click the links below:

For more information about Jim Hightower, visit www.jimhightower.com.