In my my post yesterday, I promised that we had some plans for this blog. Meet part of that plan - Steph Larsen.

Steph is the new Rural Policy Organizer at the Center, working out of our main office in rural northeastern Nebraska. Before we stole her to come work with us, Steph worked as a policy organizer and policy director for the Community Food Security Coalition in their Washington, D.C. office.

No stranger to farm bill politics, Steph worked alongside many others in advocating for reform during the recently completed farm bill debate. You know that fabulously popular Community Food Project grants program?  Steph and others are largely responsible for helping retain funding for the program during a time of tight budgets.

We hope she can figure out how to do the same for the newly-won Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program we managed to help get in the farm bill. And, indeed, we have tasked her with just that, so expect to hear more about that program from her in the coming months.

Let's see. What else? Steph has some degrees in geology and geography from a couple of schools in her home state of Wisconsin and she spent some time researching corn agribiodiversity in Mexico. She tells me that she speaks fluent Spanish too, but given my distinct lack of talent in that area, I suppose she could be fooling me.

From time to time, and we hope more in the coming months, Steph also writes for the environmental blog Gristmill. You can view her Gristmill posts here. Watch for her first post here at the Blog for Rural America tomorrow.

We are very pleased to have Steph join us at the Center for Rural Affairs.

Welcome, Steph.