As she departed New York City for Washington, D.C., to attend the White House Conference for Hunger, Nutrition, and Health last fall, Annette Nielsen \u201982 was thinking of her former employer Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Her location \u2014 the sleek, recently renovated Moynihan Train Hall \u2014 was one reason, but also, she was remembering how the now-deceased politician attended the first (and only other) conference on the subject in 1969. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s a topic you\u2019re passionate\nabout, it\u2019s going to take 30 years to get the\nneedle to move or to see any kind of action\nthat\u2019s meaningful,\u201d Nielsen remembers\nMoynihan saying.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s now been more than 50 years since that first conference and 30 years since Nielsen worked for Moynihan, who made headlines for working on health care reform. She has dedicated her career to that same goal by educating others about healthy eating as well as the vital role farms play in our nutrition and food systems. Most recently, Nielsen has been appointed team lead for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nielsen, who is in the marketing division of the department, sits on a team currently tasked with two areas: making recommendations for better processes to transport food throughout the state (\u201cto the people who need it, the markets that need it, and helping the farmers move the food in the most efficient way\u201d) as well as increasing the number of community gardens by improving land access and skill development. Her department also made recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nielsen\u2019s career has circled back to\ngovernment after several decades as a\njournalist. The Colgate fine arts major\nstarted out as an administrator for several\npoliticians, including Sen. Ted Kennedy,\nbefore a shift in political power replaced\nMoynihan and forced Nielsen to consider a\nnew direction.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She decided to become a writer, earning her MA from Johns Hopkins. In choosing a focus, Nielsen returned to a knowledge base that\u2019s been part of her since childhood. She\u2019d grown up in the Adirondacks, where her father was a forester who hunted and fished for food while her mother was a home economics teacher. Through her mother, Nielsen learned that a meal should include a variety of colors and textures. \u201cShe would always talk about the vitamins and minerals on each part of our plate.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first article Nielsen pitched, to the Hill Rag <\/em>in D.C.<\/em>, was about a chef doing demos at the farmer\u2019s market. Nielsen soon became the newspaper\u2019s food writer, and when she and her husband moved to upstate New York, Nielsen assumed that position at the Saratogian <\/em>in Saratoga Springs. \u201cA lot of people were starting to write about chefs at that point, [but] I started looking at the farmer as the rock star,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThere were so many farmers and farms and such wonderful stories behind them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition her journalism, Nielsen made other efforts related to food. As a member of her town\u2019s board of education, she took students on field trips to local farms. She helped turn the community center\u2019s kitchen into a place where farmers and producers could work. She even helped deliver lambs and made cheese at a friend\u2019s sheep farm. These experiences were \u201ca second schooling,\u201d Nielsen says, \u201clearning about what it takes to run a farm … learning about our food system up close and personal.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although she now lives in New York City,\nNielsen hasn\u2019t lost her perspective on the\nimportance of farmers. Returning from the\nWhite House conference, she\u2019s thinking about\nthe ways in which they can help with the\nevent\u2019s stated ambitions, such as ending food\ninsecurity. (President Joe Biden unveiled a\nplan to end hunger in the U.S. by 2030.)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we look at our food system, I think the\nfood is there,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s how we get it\nfrom place to place and make sure people\nhave enough money to afford that food.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflecting on the first White House\nconference in 1969, she says, \u201cWe\u2019ve made\nprogress,\u201d citing evolved dietary guidelines\nand services like SNAP (the Supplemental\nNutrition Assistance Program).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur country has an ability to have an impact on so many lives, with programs that can make a difference now and in the future.\u201d Nielsen is hopeful that, one day, we\u2019ll look back on this recent conference and say, \u201cThis [gave us] some solid action items and programs that [had] an impact across the board, on everyone\u2019s health and well-being.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Update: Nielsen has taken a new position and is now executive director of The Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Annette Nielsen \u201982 has dedicated her career to educating others about healthy eating as well as the vital role farms play in our nutrition and food systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":11301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[1312,1311,61,1308,1313,1309,433,1310,1314],"coauthors":[388],"class_list":["post-11072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-farming","tag-fine-arts","tag-food","tag-food-security","tag-food-system","tag-healthy-lifestyle","tag-journalism","tag-new-york-state-department-of-agriculture-and-markets","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2SA","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/02\/annette_DSC6384finalflat.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11072"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11617,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions\/11617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11072"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}