Professional Awards

Call for Nominations

The Call for AFHVS Professional Award Nominations for 2025 will be posted in Fall 2024. Check back here for the nominations packet.

Award Winners

The Richard P. Haynes Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award in Agriculture, Food, and Human Values

To honor persons who in their careers have made outstanding contributions towards realizing the goals of the AFHVS through research, teaching, extension, public service or public policy.

2010 Richard Haynes, University of Florida

2011  Kate Clancy, Independent food systems consultant

2013  Paul Thompson, Michigan State University

2014  Laura DeLind, Michigan State University

2015  Carolyn Sachs, The Pennsylvania State University

2018  Gilbert Wayne "Gil" Gillespie, Jr., Cornell University
and Harrisdale Homestead

2019  Cornelia Flora, Iowa State University

2020  Douglas Constance, Sam Houston State University
Harvey S. James, Jr., University of Missouri

2021 William B. Lacy, University of California-Davis

2022  Gail Feenstra, University of California-Davis

2024 Molly D. Anderson, Middlebury College

Excellence in Scholarship

To recognize AFHVS members who have made outstanding research contributions that are important to an aspect of agriculture, food, and human values.

2010   Leland Glenna, The Pennsylvania State University

2011   Clare Hinrichs, The Pennsylvania State University

2012   Patricia Allen, Marylhurst University

2015   Julie Guthman, University of California, Santa Cruz

2016   Rick Welsh, Syracuse University

2017   Lisa Heldke, Gustavus Adolphus College

2018   Daniel Jaffee, Portland State University

2019   Matthew Sanderson, Kansas State University

2022 Philip H. Howard, Michigan State University

2023 Shoshanah Inwood, The Ohio State University; Florence Becot,  Marshfield Clinic Research Institute; and Andrea Rissing, Arizona State University

2024 Theresa L. Selfa, SUNY-ESF

Excellence in Instruction

To recognize AFHVS members for outstanding teaching related to agriculture, food, and human values at the graduate and/or undergraduate level.

2009   Harry West, Johan Pottier, and Jacob Klein - Food
Studies Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London

2014   Gilbert G. Gillespie, Cornell University

2017   Amy Guptill, SUNY Brockport

2018   Robert T. Valgenti, Lebanon Valley College

2019   Valentine Cadieux, Hamline University

2021 Mary Hendrickson, University of Missouri

2022 Robert Magneson Chiles, The Pennsylvania State University

2023 Kim Niewolny, Virginia Tech

2024 Nadine Lehrer, Chatham University

Excellence in Public Service

To honor AFHVS members and their collaborators who have made academic or non-academic contributions that have had significant public service impact on the advancement of agriculture, food, and human values through their work in universities, colleges, government, non-government organizations, or consultancies, or other forms of public service.

2012   Douglas Constance, Sam Houston State University

2014   Ardyth Harris Gillespie, Cornell University

2019   Neva Hassanein, University of Montana

2022 Siva Sureshwaran, USDA/NIFA

2024 Jennifer Gaddis, University of Wisconsin-Madison

excellence in innovation

To honor AFHVS members who have made a compelling contribution to innovation and collaboration in the interdisciplinary field of agriculture, food, and human values through a recent publication or project or other landmark achievement.

2017   Marcia Ostrom, Washington State University

2021 Vanessa García Polanco, National Young Farmers
Coalition

2022 Anna Erwin, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

the kenneth a. dahlberg Early-Career Excellence award

2023 Katie Dentzman, Iowa State University
Estelí Jiménez-Soto, Syracuse University

2024 Margiana Petersen-Rockney, University of Montana 

special commendation

2015   Michaela Oldfield, for outstanding service to the
Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society

2019   Harvey S. James, Jr., for 12 years as Editor-in-Chief of
Agriculture and Human Values

2024 Matthew Sanderson, Outstanding Service as Editor-in-Chief of Agriculture and Human Values

Student Awards

Call for Papers

The Call for Papers for the 2025 Student Research Paper Awards will be posted here when it becomes available. For questions, contact SPA-chair@afhvs.org.

Award Winners

Graduate Student Research Paper 

2024

Winning Paper:
"Pork. It's What's for Lunch: Food, Race and the Politics of Migration in Denmark," Samantha Brown, University of Oregon

Honorable Mention:
"Green Gold: Avocado Production and Conflict in Mexico," Juan Carlos Angulo, University of Maryland, College Park

2023

Winning Paper:
"'Outsiders Within' the Urban Farm: An Intersectional Analysis of Black Women’s Experiences with Agriculture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA)," Hannah Whitley, Penn State University

2022

Winning Paper:
"Food Justice And Farmers’ Networks: An Examination of Coalition Building Among Women Growers Across The Rural-Urban Divide," Michaela Hoffelmeyer, Penn State University

Honorable Mention:
“'To rescue for human society the native values of rural life': Race, space, and whiteness in the University of California, Berkeley’s Agricultural Complex," Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; University of California, Berkeley 

2021

"Hunger Strikes and Differential Consciousness: Impure Contestation, Hunger, and the Building of Symbolic Futures," Becca Chalit Hernandez, Colorado State University   

2020

"'I Like Carrots but the Carrots at this School Are Just ...': Influences on students’ produce consumption in the National School Lunch Program,” Amy Rosenthal, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University

2019

Honorable Mention:
"Acts of Translation: The Connective Tissue of an Alternative Agri-food Assemblage in Guatemala," Ioulia Fenton, Department of Anthropology, Emory University

2018

2017

2016

"Troubling Tradition, Community, and Self-Reliance: Reframing Expectations for Village Seed Banks," Emily Reisman, University of California-Santa Barbara

2015

"Cultivating Citizenship, Equity, and Social Inclusion? Putting Civic Agriculture into Practice through Urban Farming," Melissa Poulsen, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

2014

"The Great American Garden: Farming Myth and Sustainability on the Western Prairie," Joel Scherer, Colorado State University

2013

Winning paper:
"Labor of Love: Viability Strategies in Sustainable Farming," Analena Bruce

Honorable Mention:
"Incorporating the Philosophy of Technology into Animal Welfare Assessment," Courtney Lynd Daigle, Michigan State University

2012

Winning paper:
"Problems with the Defetishization Thesis: The Case of a Farmer’s Market," Ryan Gunderson, Michigan State University 

Published as: Ryan Gunderson, "Problems with the defetishization thesis: ethical consumerism, alternative food systems, and commodity fetishism," Agriculture and Human Values, 31(1), 2014.

Honorable Mention:
"How Local is Local? Determining the Boundaries of Local Food in Practice," Shawn Trivette, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

2011

Winning papers:
"The Rise of Local Organic Food Systems in the US: An Analysis of Farmers’ Markets." Jared Oleson, University of California Irvine

"Landscape Agroecology: Pathways for Collective and Individual Multifunctionality," Noelle Harden and Loka Ashwood, University of Wisconsin Madison

Honorable mentions:
"Pushing the Boundaries of Indigeneity and Agricultural Knowledge: Immigrant Community Gardening in California," Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, UC Berkeley, Department of Geography

"The Political Ecology of Forming a Farming Cooperative in Pompeya, Ecuador," Juliet Braslow, University of California Davis

2010

"Growing Local Food: Scale and Local Food Systems Governance,” Phil Mount, Department of Geography, University of Guelph 

Published as: Phil Mount, "Growing local food: scale and local food systems governance," Agriculture and Human Values, 29(1), 2012.

2009

“Keeping the Wineglass Full: Sustainable Viticulture and Its Role in Sustaining Agricultural Livelihoods in Lodi, California,” Matthew Hoffman, Iowa State University, Department of Sociology and Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture

2008

Betty Izumi, Michigan State University, School of Public Health

“(Bio)fueling farm policy: The Ethanol Boom and the 2008 Farm Bill," Nadine Lehrer, University of Minnesota, Natural Resources Science and Management

Published as: Lehrer, Nadine. (2010) (Bio)fueling farm policy: The biofuels boom and the 2008 farm bill. Agriculture and Human Values, 27(4):427-444.

Undergraduate Student Research Paper Awardees

2024

"Gleaning for Sustainability: Understanding Farmers' Social, Environmental, and Economic Motivations for Charitable Food Donation," Samantha Schulteis, Yale University (written at Duke University)

2021

"Imperfect Solutions: The Use of Agrarian Ideals in “Ugly Produce” Marketing," Natalie Milan, Stanford University

2020

"Growing British India: The Colonial Biopolitics of the Potato," Julia Fine, Harvard University

2017

2016

"The Origin and Lifespan of Food Assistance Programs during the Great Depression," Vincent Gottfried Wisehoon, Syracuse University

2014

"The Politics of Transgenic Food: An Ethnographically-Informed Analysis of the Ban on Genetically Modified Crops in Bolivia," Kristin Gjelsteen, University of Puget Sound

2013

"Wendell Berry’s Object-Oriented Agroecology and the New Millennium, " Charlie Jackson, New Mexico State University

2012

"Building a Real Food System: The Challenges and Successes on the College Campus," Sarah Arndt

2009

"In Search of the New "Fair Trade" Paradigm: An Alternative to the Market-Driven Relationship," Ezequiel Zylberberg, University of Florida, Department of Religion.