Get to Know EFI’s New Leader: Q&A with Gonzalo Martinez De Vedia
I got my education at a land grant college. At the time, I didn’t know what that was! One thing it meant was that my mentors there pushed me to get outside the library and put theory to practice via extension programs. So while I was studying topics like public policy, labor relations and migration, I started the first of many years of visits to farmworker housing on dairy farms, apple orchards and vineyards across upstate New York. The classroom gave me tools, but I mostly found my motivation out in the field. I met workers from Veracruz who had settled for year-round dairy work in the Finger Lakes; I met crews of Jamaican guest workers who had been spending the harvest season on Champlain Valley farms for decades; and the list went on from there. I related immediately to those communities, as an immigrant, and I also started to understand the many ways our systems could better serve them. Around those same years I made a commitment to be a part of that change, EFI was getting its own start across the country in California. It’s not an accident we all crossed paths eventually.
Gonzalo Martinez joined EFI as executive director in January. We sat down with him to learn a little about the experiences that led him to EFI.
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Can you share a bit about your experiences and education that brings you to this role?
Your experience with workers in the field clearly influenced you, but behind every leader is often a story of personal inspiration that sets their direction. Is there someone who has inspired your work and career path?
I spent a lot of time with my grandmother growing up. She is a sociologist who helped write Argentina’s national action plan against child labor. Her generation paved the way to some of what we think of as best practices and standards today. Imagine the courage it took for her to leave a small rural town to dive into these topics in the 1970s in Buenos Aires. When a military dictatorship got into power and started targeting the social sciences, she had to flee to another province with a 6-year-old in tow and wait them out. Eventually, with the return of democracy, my abuela’s generation had their chance to enter government, shape policy and leave their mark. I think I have that in common with many others who work on these topics: we are in it to pick up where those before us left off, as a way to feel connected to that history and honor the sacrifices. There are days I think of it like a relay race, taking the progress to the next level.
A multistakeholder approach is such a critical part of how EFI operates, how does that resonate with you personally?
EFI didn’t invent the “big table” approach – it’s a tried and true method to get things done across topics and places – but it’s one of the few groups I’ve seen successfully create and maintain a space like that at the complex intersection of issues that is the modern food system. I don’t think multistakeholder spaces are comfortable for everyone. Some of the most talented and impactful leaders I’ve met around the world have chosen a very clear “side” or theory of change and only really engage others across the table in bargaining, in court, or when it’s time to get a quote for a report or article. Those are essential, difficult and often dangerous jobs. I believe coalition-building and getting groups who have adverse interests to make common cause on systems change is also a worthy endeavor, and difficult in its own way. It’s the kind of “difficult” I prefer to work with.
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It’s one thing to value coalition-building in theory, but it’s another to see it work in practice. What did you observe during your time on the EFI Board that convinced you this specific group of stakeholders was ready to go the distance?
I was drawn to EFI because it was started as a leap of faith between organizations who don’t normally collaborate, and, despite all the predictable challenges involved in that, virtually all of the founding stakeholders are still at the table. When I joined EFI’s Board of Directors, I saw folks stay to chat between meetings. They genuinely showed curiosity and interest to better understand one another, each other’s work and views. That authentic interaction makes a multistakeholder approach successful. And it is what gave me the confidence to take on the Executive Director role and to continue what Peter O’Driscoll has done so well over these 15 years: keep EFI focused on the scale of the impact we can have right at the intersection of all our approaches and perspectives.
Source: equitablefood.org
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