Keynotes

Tory Miller

THURSDAY KEYNOTE | 6:O0 P.M. | DINING HALL Thursday Supper: Cultivating a Local Food Culture Welcome provided by Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Randy Romanski

Food is central to cultures and for generations, has been used for community healing. This meal will showcase the abundance of Midwest ingredients that contribute to cultural food traditions. Join us, and featured speaker Tory Miller, to cultivate community through sharing food customs! Chef Tory grew up working in his grandparents’ diner in Racine, Wisconsin before moving to New York to attend the French Culinary Institute and work his way through some of the city’s finest kitchens. A true Wisconsinite at heart, he returned to Madison where he found his true passion for local food through the Dane County Farmers’ Market. A 2012 recipient of the James Beard Award Best Chef: Midwest, Tory has strived to strengthen Madison’s food system, local agriculture, and wider community throughout his career by supporting farmers and purchasing local Wisconsin products for all his restaurants demonstrating that local food can also be global food. In 2018, Chef Tory was a contestant on The Food Network’s Iron Chef Showdown, and beat Iron Chef, Bobby Flay. Welcome provided by Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Randy Romanski. Prior to this appointment, Romanski served as DATCP deputy secretary since January 2019 and interim secretary since November 2019. He also served as the assistant deputy secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Department of Transportation. Randy is originally from Wisconsin Rapids.

A-dae Romero-Briones

FRIDAY KEYNOTE | 1:30 P.M. | ROOM J Re-Setting the Table: Creating an Inclusive Food Community

2022 already promises to bring more change, to test the resiliency of our supply chains, individual and community health, and the bonds of connection. 2022 also offers opportunities to listen and experience new ways of being, cultivating food, and strengthening community. For Indigenous communities and land-based peoples, the fight continues, to honor commitments to land and people. Struggle and experiencing change as a collective offers a way to honor one another, our lands, and foods and build a shared future. Adae will offer insights from living and working with Indigenous food systems for over 35 years that can be utilized to strengthen interactions between people, land, food, and our natural world. A-dae (Kiowa/Cochiti) was born and raised in Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico and comes from the Toyekoyah/Komalty Family from Hog Creek, Oklahoma on the Kiowa side. Mrs. Romero-Briones works as Director of Programs-Native Food and Agricultural Program for First Nations Development Institute and Co-founder/director of the California Tribal Fund. A U.S. Fulbright Scholar, Ms. Romero-Briones received her B.A. in Public Policy from Princeton University, received a JD from Arizona State University, and LLM in Food and Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas. President Obama recognized Adae as a White House Champion of Change in Agriculture. She formerly sat on the National Organic Standards Board and actively works to address equity issues in the NOP.

Emily Kawano

SATURDAY KEYNOTE | 10:30 A.M. | ROOM J Solidarity Economy: System Change for a Regenerative Food System

Is it possible to build a regenerative food system within the capitalist system or is it necessary to move beyond capitalism to a post-capitalist system such as the solidarity economy? The solidarity economy is a global movement to build an economy and world that centers the welfare of people and planet. It is grounded in real world practices that align with values of solidarity, participatory democracy, equity in all dimensions, sustainability, and pluralism: a world in which many worlds fit. Emily Kawano is Founder and Co-Coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and has served for 8 years on the Board of RIPESS (the Intercontinental Network for the Social Solidarity Economy). She is the co-director of Wellspring Cooperative, which is developing a network of worker cooperatives in inner city Springfield, MA. She received her Ph.D in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and served as the director of the Center for Popular Economics, a collective of progressive economists that helps to demystify the economy. She taught economics at Smith College and worked as the AFSC’s National Economic Justice Representative.