Peter Lehner is managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food and Farming Program, deploying strategies to promote a more environmentally sound agricultural system.

From 2007 to 2015, Lehner was the executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the NRDC Action Fund leading all aspects of the organizations’ work. From 1999 to 2006, Lehner served as chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s office, where his team prosecuted a wide variety of polluters and developed innovative multistate strategies targeting global warming and air pollution. Previously, Lehner worked with the New York City Law Department, starting and leading its Environmental Prosecution Unit. Lehner teaches a seminar on food systems and environmental law at Columbia and Yale Law Schools.

Lehner has a B.A. from Harvard in philosophy and mathematics and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. He is on the boards of the Rainforest Alliance and Environmental Advocates New York and helps manage two mid-sized farms. 

Jessica Hulse Dillon

Senior Director, Soil & Climate Alliance 

Jessica has extensive experience in fostering cross-sector collaborations to drive systemic change. Her expertise lies in engaging diverse stakeholders to develop sustainable national supply chains, a focus that has been central to her work with member organizations.

This work has led Jessica to engage across industries including in the for and non-profit worlds, as well across the government engaging both policy makers and policy implementors to create meaningful change that impacts the lives of those working to improve the world around them.

Working in both local and national food systems has allowed Jessica to more directly understand and engage in the issues that impact both our global food system and those on the front lines of this work. By connecting players across the food and agriculture spaces Jessica is able to identify the roadblocks in advancing the system and guide the development of solutions that address the root cause of the block. Focusing on all possible levers to create lasting change allows for solutions that address all sectors and players and lead to lasting change.

Throughout her career spanning multiple sectors including energy, maternal and newborn health, education, food access, and agriculture as well as a global approach from working with partners around the globe, Jessica has developed a versatile approach to problem-solving and collaboration.

Elizabeth Candelario

Chief Strategy Officer

Elizabeth has worked at the intersection of food, climate, and agriculture for the past fifteen years. She is Chief Strategy Officer for Mad Agriculture, a non-profit that works with farmers as agents of change to move from extractive, conventional agriculture to regenerative, organic farming. The Mad! ecosystem of companies provides land and business planning, farmer forward financing, marketplace development, and storytelling. Elizabeth’s role is to implement strategic initiatives in collaboration with our diverse network of partners in order to accelerate systematic change in our food system and help spark the regenerative revolution in agriculture.  

In her prior role as President of Demeter USA, the exclusive domestic certifier of Biodynamic farms and products, Elizabeth focused on expanding awareness and markets to enhance returns for regenerative farmers. She began her career in the California wine industry, where she spent nearly two decades in increasingly senior positions, with a growing emphasis on the environment.

Elizabeth speaks frequently at national food and environmental conferences, and has written extensively on agriculture and climate change.