{"id":1160,"date":"2025-10-17T20:56:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/?page_id=1160"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:12:27","slug":"m-jahi-johnson-chappell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/m-jahi-johnson-chappell\/","title":{"rendered":"M. Jahi Johnson-Chappell"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wsu-row  wsu-color-background--white wsu-row--halves\" >\r\n    \n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-labs\/uploads\/sites\/3011\/2025\/10\/Jahi-3-web-square-2.jpg\" alt=\"M. Jahi Johnson-Chappell.\" class=\"wp-image-1161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-labs\/uploads\/sites\/3011\/2025\/10\/Jahi-3-web-square-2.jpg 500w, https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-labs\/uploads\/sites\/3011\/2025\/10\/Jahi-3-web-square-2-396x396.jpg 396w, https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-labs\/uploads\/sites\/3011\/2025\/10\/Jahi-3-web-square-2-198x198.jpg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It was also recently cited by the United Nations\u2019 High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition as a primary source for their recommendation to add the concept of people\u2019s sociopoliticalHis second book, <em>Agroecology Now! Transformations Towards More Just and Sustainable Food Systems<\/em>, co-authored with colleagues from the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, was published in 2020.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\r\n\n\n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n\n<p><strong>M. Jahi Johnson-Chappell<\/strong> is a scholar, organizer, son of social workers, and grandson of Michigan farmers. He is the&nbsp;Director of the Center for Regional Food Systems and a Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan&nbsp;State University, where he additionally holds the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Endowed Chair for Food, Society, and Sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past 22 years, Jahi has researched and advocated at international, national, and local levels for participatory, socially just, and ecologically sustainable agrifood systems that center the voices of farmers, laborers, and the communities they serve. Pursuing this goal has taken him across sectors and continents, including faculty positions at Washington State University and at Coventry University\u2019s Center for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) in the United Kingdom.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the nonprofit sector, Jahi has previously served as the Executive Director of the Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network, or SAAFON, which offers direct support and organizing for Black, sustainable farmers in the Southeastern United States and US Virgin Islands; the Executive Director of the 46-year-old think tank Food First; and as Senior Scientist and Director of Agroecology and Agricultural Policy at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Additionally, he was a Founding Board member of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), and has previously served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Agroecology Fund; and as the Vice Chair of the Board of Thousand Currents, an international grassroots foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jahi\u2019s first book, <em>Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Beyond<\/em>, was published in 2018 by the University of California Press. In it, he analyzed world-unique breakthroughs in reducing hunger and supporting small-scale farmers in southeastern Brazil. <em>Beginning to End Hunger\u2019s<\/em>&nbsp;scholarly contributions were recognized by the Society of Human Ecology with their Gerald L. Young Book Award.power, or \u201cagency,\u201d as an additional pillar of the FAO\u2019s definition of food security.&nbsp;He has consulted for the World Future Council, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and La V\u00eda Campesina, the international peasants\u2019 movement. His work has been covered in <em>The New York Times<\/em>, <em>The Baffler, The Intercept<\/em>, <em>The Counter<\/em>, <em>La Jornada <\/em>(Mexico), <em>Associated Press Wire<\/em>, and <em>Vice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\r\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":44181,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[],"tags":[],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1160\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.wsu.edu\/csej\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}