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About Local Fare
We would like to invite you to participate in an exciting new effort to create local jobs, grow healthy food and build community. Local FARE (Fostering Agricultural Research and Enterprise) is a grassroots team of pragmatic visionaries working to create a network of resilient local food systems across the diverse communities of Northern Arizona. We work at the edges of traditional disciplines, adapting strategic research, community organizing and business incubation to catalyze profitable enterprises in food and agriculture. Our staff is based on the NAU campus, but our social network is made up of diverse groups of entrepreneurs, farmers, ranchers, government, students and institutions throughout the region. We ask for your participation to create a local food system that is rooted in the exceptional people and places of Northern Arizona.
Who We Are:
In 2006 Eli Bernstein came to Flagstaff from Santa Cruz, California to pursue a Masters degree in Environmental Science and Policy with Dr Thomas Sisk at NAU. After graduating he helped launch Diablo Burger, acted as general manager for three years, and is now a proud part owner. As Sr. Program Coordinator of Local FARE he brings a unique skill set in small business development, local food, conservation biology, agroecology and education.
Regan Emmons serves as the project lead for the greenhouse farming enterprise, the backyard growers market collaborative and the cooperative farming enterprise projects. She recently completed her thesis on affordable home food cultivation for her Masters of Arts in Sustainable Communities at Northern Arizona University. When she isn’t working for Local FARE, she is likely learning the rugged art of growing food in Zone 1.
Dr. Kim Curtis is a Co-Principal Investigator for Local FARE. She mentored graduate student Regan Emmons on the Production Needs Assessment and worked with others on report writing and editing. She teaches at Northern Arizona University in the First Year Seminar Program and in the Masters Program in Sustainable Communities. Her teaching and research occur at the intersection of engaged pedagogy, grassroots democracy and localization of food systems.
Dr. Rom Coles is the Principal Investigator for Local FARE. Director of the Program in Community, Culture, and the Environment, he teaches and writes on grassroots democracy and community building, political economy, and action research.
Patrick Pfeifer grew up in the Illinois, 30 miles west of Chicago, with parents who instilled in him a love of the outdoors and natural environments. They had a small garden in Illinois, but Patrick really became interested in food production and food justice during his undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Patrick was involved in the formation of an informal community-based garden cooperative, which led him to pursue the Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities program here at NAU. While in Tucson, Patrick also worked actively in large-scale composting, leading to the desire to continue research into large-scale composting methods with Local FARE