Frances Moore Lappé

Frances Moore Lappé is a democracy advocate and world food and hunger expert who has authored or co-authored 16 books. She is the co-founder of three organizations, including Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lapp&eacute. In 1987 she received the Right Livelihood Award (a.k.a, the “Alternative Nobel.”) Her first book, Diet for a Small Planet, has sold three million copies and is considered “the blueprint for eating with a small carbon footprint since long before the term was coined” [JM Hirsch, Associated Press].

Her most recent book is Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad, awarded the Nautilus Gold/“Best in Small Press” award. In June 2008, that book and Diet for a Small Planet were designated as must-reads for the next U.S. president (by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan, respectively) in The New York Times Sunday Review of Books. Other recent books include Hope’s Edge, written with Anna Lappé, about democratic social movements worldwide, as well as You Have the Power and Democracy’s Edge.

Lappé has received 17 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions including The University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000-2001. She received the 2008 James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year Award for her lifelong impact on the way people all over the world think about food, nutrition, and agriculture. See the JBF’s video introduction to Frances and her work here.

In 2008, Gourmet Magazine named Lappé among 25 people (including Thomas Jefferson, Upton Sinclair, and Julia Child), whose work has changed the way America eats. The same year, Diet for a Small Planet was selected as one of 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World by members of the Women’s National Book Association in observance of its 75th anniversary.

Articles by or about Frances have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, People, and more. She has most recently been featured in The Boston Globe, AARP: The Magazine, Sojourners, The Progressive, and on WSJ.com, The Huffington Post, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s The National, NPR, and the BBC.

Together, Lappé and her daughter Anna Lappé lead the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education to bring democracy to life. With her daughter, she is also co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, channeling resources to democratic social movements worldwide.

In 2006 she was chosen as a founding councilor of the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She is also a member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture and the National Advisory Council of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She serves as an advisor to the Calgary Centre for Global Community and on the board of David Korten’s People-Centered Development Forum. Lappé is a contributing editor to Yes! Magazine.

Historian Howard Zinn writes: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of green and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.” The Washington Post says: “Some of the twentieth century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them.”

ADVISORY POSTS AND BOARDS:
- Frances is a founding councilor of the World Future Council, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and London
- Frances serves on the advisory boards for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Simple Living, the Chez Panisse Foundation, Earth Corps, and the People-Centered Development Foundation

TEACHING AND SCHOLARLY POSITIONS
- From 2000-2001 Frances was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- In 2003, Frances taught with Dr. Vandana Shiva in Dehra Dun, India, about the roots of world hunger, sponsored by the Navdanya researching and agricultural demonstration center.
- In 2004, Frances taught a course on Living Democracy at Schumacher College in England.
- In 2006 and 2008, Frances was a visiting professor at Suffolk University, Boston.

ADDITIONAL PARTNERSHIPS
- Frances served as spokesperson for international World Food Day 2005.
- She is a contributing editor of Yes! Magazine, which carries our website feature, “Stories from the Edge.”