Beal inaugural Fellow in new Maine Farmland Trust program
Maine Farmland Trust announced Feb. 26 it has established a new Policy and Research Fellowship program.
Amanda Beal, a sustainable food policy advocate and consultant who grew up on a Maine dairy farm and is widely respected within Maine’s agricultural community, will serve as MFT’s inaugural Fellow.
Beal is a former president of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and Cultivating Community, current chairman of the Eat Local Foods Coalition, serves on the boards of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the Friends of the Presumpscot River and has been a force behind the early work of the Maine Food Strategy.
Beal is also a co-author of A New England Food Vision, a widely circulated study, released in mid-2014,that shows how New England could grow up to two-thirds of all of its own food by the year 2060.
Beal will take on her new position at Maine Farmland Trust while she completes her PhD research in the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies program at the University of New Hampshire. Beal’s dissertation will focus on how to reclaim former farmland in ways that prevent environmental degradation, with a particular focus on maintaining water quality so that new food production on land does not diminish the potential for food production in Maine waters.
Previously, Beal obtained her M.S. while enrolled in the agriculture, food and environment program at Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
