Nationally Recognized Food Systems Leader Joins Ag Innovations

Ag Innovations is pleased to announce that Lucy Norris has joined our team as our Regional Food Systems Program Director. In this role, Lucy leads Ag Innovations’ efforts to identify and develop creative solutions that assure the long-term viability of local food systems in California and around the country. She will identify project opportunities related to food systems, assess their feasibility, and direct those projects from development to implementation. Food systems projects at Ag Innovations span a range of community, public health, environmental, social justice, and economic development topics on a range of geographic scales from the local to the state level. Lucy will oversee projects and coalitions, assuring that they are responsive to the challenges being faced, fulfilling the expectations of funders, and advancing a sustainable food system. She works with a talented team of process artists and facilitators to create and manage powerful, multi-sector collaborations that imagine and create a better food system across sectors.

Prior to joining Ag Innovations, Lucy was known as a food systems pioneer in northwest Washington. As Director of Marketing for Northwest Agriculture Business Center, she leveraged “eat local” trends to identify and create a more viable and efficient local food infrastructure for the marketing, aggregation, distribution, and value-added processing of northwest Washington farm products. As Director of the Puget Sound Food Hub, she collaborated with farmers, businesses, and partner organizations to develop a unique food hub model that increased farm sales, reduced costs and waste, addressed regulatory requirements, improved food safety standards, and increased access to locally produced foods. She was instrumental in the development of the award-winning Farm-to-Table program, led by the City of Seattle, to increase access to healthy local food for low-income children and seniors. The Capital Press named Lucy one of the 2014 Western Innovators. Lucy has brought national attention to her work, traveling to conferences around the country to share experiences and best practices while working locally with farmers, community stakeholders, and government partners for lasting systems change.

Read her full bio here on the Ag Innovations website.