Reaping What She Sows: Women Rewriting the Rules of the Food System

Please join Nancy Matsumoto for an intimate and urgent evening exploring how women are actively dismantling Big Food and replacing it with something better.

At the center of the evening is award-winning journalist and author Nancy Matsumoto, whose new book Reaping What She Sows: How Women Are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System shines a light on the farmers, seed savers, makers, and policy shapers working quietly and powerfully on the front lines of food systems change.

Nancy will be joined in conversation by Bay Area leaders working across the broader food system, including Dru Rivers of Full Belly Farm, to explore what it actually takes to imagine and build an alternative to today’s extractive, industrial food economy. Together, they will discuss local and regional food systems, regenerative agriculture, seed sovereignty, community-based supply chains, and the deeply human question beneath it all: How can we engage more fully and responsibly with our food, now?

The conversation will be moderated by Willow Blish, a leader of Slow Food East Bay and part of the global Slow Food movement, bringing a values-driven, systems-level lens to the evening.

Grab a bowl of warming soup and settle in.

This evening is meant to be shared: good food, thoughtful company, and space to question and reimagine what good food might truly mean for our bodies, our communities, and the planet.

Come hungry for nourishment, ideas, and a future worth growing!

Nancy Matsumoto is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who covers agroecology, food sovereignty, food, drink, and Japanese American culture and history. Her latest book, Reaping What She Sows: How Women Are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System (Melville House Publishing, 2025), tells the stories of women changemakers who are forging shorter, more direct, and transparent "alternative" food supply chains compared to the long, extractive and exploitative chains controlled by Big Food and Big Agriculture.

Dru Rivers is a founding partner of Full Belly Farm, where she has dedicated her life to sustainable farming through education, day to day operations, flower and animal production and forty-one years of farmers' markets. Dru has served on the Board of Directors of Eco Farm for 40 years and has played a significant role in fundraising for the organization through the Hoes Down Harvest Festival, an on-farm fundraising event that is now in its 33rd year and has raised over a million dollars for sustainable ag non profits.

Jamie Fanous, Policy & Organizing Director at Community Alliance with Family Farmers, is a political organizer who focuses on working with farmers to create and advance policies that are rooted in social justice and equity. In her role at CAFF, she focuses on engaging farmers in the policy-making process to collectively address key challenges faced by small-scale and BIPOC farmers, such as land access, drought, and infrastructure.

Willow Blish is one of the leaders of Slow Food East Bay, the local chapter of the global Slow Food movement. As her journey into food systems continues, she’s become a fierce advocate for immigration and understanding the ways in which the movement of people and products creates a delicious and sustainable food system.

Slow Food East Bay (SFEB) is the local chapter of the global Slow Food movement founded over thirty years ago to fight back against the ravages of fast food and the fast food lifestyle. With a mission to create a food system that is Good, Clean, and Fair for All, Slow Food aims to better local food systems by connecting eaters more directly with their food and the people involved in it.

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