Diane Conners, one of northern Michigan’s distinguished journalists and most prominent advocates for locally grown foods, has joined the staff of the Michigan Land Use Institute.

As a writer and organizer Diane works alongside Patty Cantrell, who developed the Institute’s entrepreneurial agriculture project in 2001 and built it into the organization’s largest program. The central focus of the project, which Patty directs, is to help family farms in northwest Lower Michigan increase their reach and revenues by meeting new consumer demand for safe, healthy foods from nearby farms.

Diane also supports the entrepreneurial agriculture project’s effort to promote state economic and regulatory policy changes that can increase farm profitability and, thereby, protect farmland threatened by sprawl. Policy reform is essential in order to build new channels through a market system that moves products in such large quantities that it shuts out family-scale producers. But smaller growers and processors often have a competitive advantage because they offer a more diverse range of food and farm products. The problem is people have difficulty finding these farms and their blue ribbon fare in a system that has reduced real choices at the market.

“Why do apples served in northwest Michigan’s healthcare institutions come off mass distribution trucks when fresh, crisp apples are abundant here?” Diane said. “Why aren’t the region’s school children snacking on tasty frozen tart cherries grown by neighboring farmers? What are the resources, infrastructure, policy choices, experiences, and stories that will help link consumers, chefs, and community institutions to the bounty produced by farmers in their own region? As a journalist, avid researcher, and local foods activist I want to answer those questions, tell the stories, and help build a vibrant local foods system.”

Diane brings to her work a proven record of superb reporting and writing, extensive knowledge of local growers and markets, and passion as an advocate for entrepreneurial agriculture. She began her journalism career as a reporter for the Manistee News Advocate, and then worked for a time in Minneapolis for the Twin Cities Courier, an African American family weekly, and for Northern Sun News, an alternative monthly that focused on environmental issues. In 1986 she joined the Traverse City Record-Eagle, and over the next 12 years produced thoughtful, well-reported, and consistently fair work on agriculture, poverty, water, economics, health, and the environment. She was one of the first journalists in the region to identify and explore the need to protect farmland from sprawl as a significant community concern.

Diane’s reporting earned a bushel of state Associated Press and Michigan Press Association awards, and national honors from the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for a series she contributed to on poverty in the region. More importantly, Diane gained the respect of her readers, including a readers’ choice Best Reporter award in 1997 from the weekly Northern Express and the Environmental Journalist of the Year award in 1995 from the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council.

After leaving the paper in 1998, Diane focused her writing on agriculture and developed a new voice as an advocate for fresh, flavorful fruits, vegetables, breads, meats, and other area farm products. In 2000 she joined the board of the Oryana Food  Cooperative in Traverse City, a successful member-based natural food store, and started a new effort to stock and promote more local farm foods. Among her innovations was organizing a farm and local foods committee to support that effort, including bringing area farms together with the store to develop and implement market strategies.

Three summers ago Diane helped start and became the market master for the Leland Farmers Market, building the weekly enterprise into a showcase of local agriculture discovery. Consumers at the Leland market find farmers who are their neighbors selling a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, meats, and flowers grown just miles from their homes.

Diane also serves on the Leelanau County Farmland Preservation Board, where she helped draft one of the first county farmland preservation ordinances in the state.

Diane’s connection with the Michigan Land Use Institute spans our entire history. In 1994 she covered and wrote a Sunday front-page article in the Record-Eagle about our first public event, a meeting on natural gas drilling that attracted a standing room only crowd to Springdale Township Hall in Manistee County.  In 1998 Diane contributed an exclusive report to the Institute’s Great Lakes Bulletin that described how the Department of Natural Resources was quietly selling public lands in northern Michigan to turn the Interstate-75 corridor into a new industrial development zone. This summer she researched and amassed a listing of 140 local food producers and their offerings for our Select a Taste of Traverse Bay guide to local farm foods. The guide is an important step in the entrepreneurial agriculture project’s efforts to make profitable and satisfying links between the region’s consumers and farms.

“I see tremendous opportunities for the entrepreneurial agriculture project to link local farmers and consumers, protect farmland and the environment, and support a vibrant economy,” she said. “The Institute has done outstanding groundwork on these issues, and I am excited to help carry the work forward with my love of writing, research, and farming.”

As a staff member, Diane will focus on growing the Institute’s Select a Taste of Traverse Bay into a full-scale local food marketing effort, including building bridges between farms and area restaurants, food services, and retail buyers. She will also work with area schools to put local foods onto lunch menus, and to help educate students about nutrition and the connection they have with farms and the land. The Institute launches a pilot project this fall at Central Grade School in Traverse City.

“We’ve known and admired Diane as a reporter and as a terrific human being for a long time,” said Hans Voss, the Institute’s executive director. “We’ve always felt that she would fit here really well. Now that she’s on board, we anticipate that she will do exceptional things with Patty to build prosperous farms and rural communities. That’s a big job, but it is an essential ingredient for Smart Growth in this region, and throughout Michigan.”

Diane was raised near Springboro, Ohio, south of Dayton, and educated at Michigan State University, where she received a B.S. degree in journalism. She and her husband, Dean Conners, have lived in Cedar since 1988. The Conners share their rural place with two cats — Sky and Anna — and three ducks, Ginger Rogers, Isadora Duckling, and Twain, who they once called Twyla Tharp until they discovered he was a boy. The feathered friends stick close to Diane’s side, snacking on potato bugs and slugs when she’s out working in her garden, which produces much of the household’s food. Among the local traditions she and Dean have embraced is making maple syrup. They invite family and friends every March to join them around the fire and a long metal tray bubbling with maple sap collected from trees on their land.