Bios

Frances Moore Lappé

Frances Moore Lappé is a democracy advocate and world food and hunger expert who has authored or co-authored 17 books. She is the co-founder of three organizations, including Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. In 1987 she received the Right Livelihood Award (a.k.a, the “Alternative Nobel.”)

Her first book, Diet for a Small Planet, has sold three million copies and is considered “the blueprint for eating with a small carbon footprint since long before the term was coined” by JM Hirsch of Associated Press; and the Women’s National Book Association chose it among 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World. In 2008, Gourmet Magazine named Lappé among 25 people (including Thomas Jefferson, Upton Sinclair and Julia Child) whose work has changed the way America eats.

Her most recent book is Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad, awarded the Nautilus Gold/“Best in Small Press” award. In June 2008, that book and Diet for a Small Planet were designated as must-reads for the next U.S. president (by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan, respectively) in The New York Times Sunday Book Review Other recent books include Hope’s Edge, written with Anna Lappé, about democratic social movements worldwide, as well as You have the Power and Democracy’s Edge.

Lappé has received 17 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions including The University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000-2001. She received the 2008 James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year Award for her lifelong impact on the way people all over the world think about food, nutrition, and agriculture (JBF’s introduction to Frances and her work).

Articles by or about Frances have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, People, and more. She has most recently been featured in The Boston Globe, AARP: The Magazine, Sojourners, The Progressive, and on WSJ.com, The Huffington Post, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s The National, NPR, and the BBC.

Together, Lappé and her daughter Anna Lappé lead the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education to bring democracy to life. With her daughter, she is also co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, channeling resources to democratic social movements worldwide.

In 2006 she was chosen as a founding councilor of the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She is also a member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture and the National Advisory Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She serves as an advisor to the Calgary Centre for Global Community and on the board of David Korten’s People-Centered Development Forum. Lappé is a contributing editor to Yes! Magazine.

Historian Howard Zinn writes: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.”

The Washington Post says: “Some of the twentieth century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them.”

ADVISORY POSTS AND BOARDS:
- Frances is a founding councilor of the World Future Council, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and London
- Frances serves on the following advisory boards: Union of Concerned Scientists, Value [the] Meal (Corporate Accountability International), Simple Living, Chez Panisse Foundation, Earth Corps, and the People-Centered Development Foundation

TEACHING AND SCHOLARLY POSITIONS
- From 2000-2001 Frances was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- In 2003, Frances taught with Dr. Vandana Shiva in Dehra Dun, India, about the roots of world hunger, sponsored by the Navdanya researching and agricultural demonstration center.
- In 2004, Frances taught a course on Living Democracy at Schumacher College in England.
- In 2006 and 2008, Frances was a visiting professor at Suffolk University, Boston.

ADDITIONAL PARTNERSHIPS
- Frances served as spokesperson for international World Food Day 2005.
- She is a contributing editor of Yes! Magazine, which carries our website feature, “Stories from the Edge.”

Condensed bios


Anna Blythe Lappé



Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author and sought-after public speaker, respected for her work on sustainability, food politics, globalization, and social change. Named one of Time’s “eco” Who’s-Who, Anna has been featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, O: The Oprah Magazine, Domino, Food & Wine, Body + Soul, Natural Health, and Vibe, among many other publications.

Anna is a founding principal, with her mother Frances Moore Lappé, of the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, an international network for research and popular education about the root causes of hunger and poverty. The Lappés are also co-founders of the Small Planet Fund, which has raised more than $500,000 for democratic social movements worldwide, two of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize since the Fund’s founding in 2002.

Anna is a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio and appears frequently on television, from PBS to the CBC in Canada and FoxNews. Anna is the host for MSN’s Practical Guide to Healthy Living and is a co-host for the public television series, The Endless Feast. She can also be seen as a featured expert on Howdini.com; the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet; and the PBS documentary, Nourish: Food + Community. She has been on hundreds of radio programs, including National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, The Diane Rehm Show, Talk to America, and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show and Leonard Lopate Show.

Since 2002, Anna has participated in more than three hundred events, from community food festivals to university lectures. She has been a featured speaker at dozens of colleges and universities, including Boston College, Brown University, Columbia University, Dominican University, Northwestern University, Wesleyan, and Yale University, among many others.

Anna’s first book Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (Tarcher/Penguin 2002), co-written with her mother Frances Moore Lappé, chronicles courageous social movements around the world. Winner of the Nautilus Award for Social Change, Hope’s Edge has been published in several languages and is used in dozens of classrooms, from Telluride to Toronto to Tokyo.

Called “ingenious” by The New York Times, Anna’s second book Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (Tarcher/Penguin 2006) showcases the ecological and social benefits of sustainable food and brings this diet to life with the seasonal menus of chef Bryant Terry.

Anna’s writing has been published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and Canada’s Globe and Mail. Anna is also a contributing author to Food Inc., WorldChanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century, and Feeding the Future: How the Battle over Food Will Change Your Life.

Her writing and advocacy has earned Anna numerous recognitions. She was named one of the nation’s leading environmental changemakers by Organic Style magazine and in 2006 was selected for Contribute magazine’s “21 Under 40 Making a Difference.” In 2007, Anna was chosen by the Missing Peace Project for the Compassion in Action Award.

Anna earned an M.A. in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and graduated with honors from Brown University. From 2004 to 2006, she was a Food and Society Policy Fellow with the WK Kellogg Foundation. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Oakland Institute.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their daughter, Ida.

Her third book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, will be published in April 2010 by Bloomsbury. 

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