Benjamin Gisin

Founder and "Touch the Soil™" Publisher

Ben is considered one of the nations leading experts on how monetary policy impacts agriculture. He has over 20 years of agricultural banking experience culminating as senior agricultural approval officer for one of the nation’s top ten agricultural banks. Since 1996, he has consulted farmers and ranchers in their debt and credit challenges, negotiating some of the largest debt settlements between farmers and lenders. Ben is the author of the book Farmer's and Rancher's Guide to Credit.

Susan Gisin

Founder and "Touch the Soil™" Editor

Susan has over 30 years of experience in banking (operations, administration, training, and credit) and retail merchandising and sales.

Since 1996 Susan has been office manager for AgriCents, a farm consulting company and parent company to Touch the Soil™.

Lexie Stoia

Contributing Author

Lexie Stoia works in the Organic Certification Department of the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association (OEFFA)in Columbus, Ohio. OEFFA is a membership-based, grassroots organization, dedicated to promoting and supporting sustainable, ecological, and healthful food systems. Lexie’s e-mail address is Email: lexie@oeffa.org

Melinda Hemmelgarn

Contributing Author

Melinda Hemmelgarn is a registered dietitian, newspaper columnist, freelance writer, speaker, and a Food and Society Policy fellow. She is the author of the nationally syndicated Food Sleuth, a column devoted to digesting nutrition research, exposing diet fraud, and helping consumers think beyond their plates.

Zachary D. Lyons

Contributing Author

Zachary Lyons is a freelance food and agriculture writer based in Seattle, Washington. He recently retired after seven years of heading the Washington State Farmers Market Association.

Susan W. Clark

Contributing Author

Susan Clark is a freelance writer, a Master Gardener, an organic farmer and cofounder of Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust, an organization that holds urban and rural agricultural lands in trust, keeping them in agricultural use by successive generations of growers and stewards. It serves to restore an appreciation of agriculture and to actively participate in developing sustainable agricultural practices and systems through research and education. More information about Susan Clark's activities can be found on her website susanwclark.wordpress.com.

Lester Brown

Contributing Author

Lester is president of Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit, interdisciplinary research organization based in Washington, D.C. Lester has been honored with over 20 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize and Japan's Blue Planet Prize. Brown founded the prestigious Worldwatch Institute. Lester is one of the world's most widely published authors, having authored or coauthored more than 50 books that have been translated into more than 40 languages.

Michael Pollan

Contributing Author

Michael Pollan is author of New York Times Best Seller, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, A Place of My Own and Second Nature. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harper's Magazine and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley. For more information, visit www.michaelpollan.com.

Elizabeth L. Andress, Ph.D.

Contributing Author

Dr. Andress is an Extension Food Safety Specialist at the University of Georgia and Director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Dr. Andress helped revise the 5th edition of So Easy To Preserve, a comprehensive guide to home food preservation.

John Ikerd, Ph.D.

Contributing Author

Dr. Ikerd is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia. Dr. Ikerd spent a lifetime working in Extension Agricultural Economics and agricultural sustainability. He is author of Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, a book that addresses the philosophical and scientific roots of sustainability, examines neglected ethical and moral aspects of capitalist economic theory, and advocates a new sustainable paradigm for all living organizations, businesses, economics, and societies.

Jeffrey Smith

Contributing Author

Jeffrey Smith is author of Seeds of Deception, the world's bestselling book on the risks of genetically altered foods, the internationally syndicated monthly column Spilling the Beans, and the producer of the video, Hidden Dangers in Kids' Meals. He has traveled in 25 countries on six continents, briefing world leaders and the public, and has reached well over 100 million people through hundreds of media interviews. Smith is director of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

David King

Contributing Author

David King is gardenmaster at The Learning Garden in Los Angeles, Calif. He is a horticultural lecturer and author. Growing up in rural Kansas, King also serves on the board of directors of the American Community Gardening Association.

Debra Eschmeyer

Contributing Author

Debra Eschmeyer is the Marketing and Media Manager of the National Farm to School Network http://www.farmtoschool.org. She is in the process of transitioning a fifth generation family farm in Ohio to organic. Prior to her work at the National Farm To School Network she served as the project director at the National Family Farm Coalition, the Asia program coordinator for the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund at Conservation International and as the humanitarian grants Asia coordinator for Rotary International. Deb has a degree in Marketing and International Affairs - Business from Xavier University.

Will Newman II

Contributing Author

Will Newman II is an active lecturer and grass roots food activist on the west coast. Living near Portland, Oregon, he is a co-founder of Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust (http://www.osalt.org), a model nonprofit for saving farmland. With a diverse background as an entrepreneur and farmer he is active in Master Gardeners, Master Recyclers, Master Food Preservers, Home Orchard Society and Oregon Tilth.

Franz Gisin

Webmaster/Photoshop Guru

Franz Gisin is the Touch the Soil™ Webmaster and resident Photoshop guru. In his spare time he works as an applied mathematician in Silicon Valley (San Jose, California).