Keynote speaker
Robert Karp New Spirit Ventures
Robert Karp has been a social entrepreneur in the local food movement for over fifteen years. He has helped start community supported agriculture projects (CSA’s), farmers’ markets, institutional buying projects and farmer-buyer-consumer cooperatives. He has led many educational efforts focused on helping farmers and wholesale food buyers build relationships and helped start the “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” marketing campaign which now has chapters in over 25 states. Robert accomplished much of this while working for a non-profit farm organization called Practical Farmers of Iowa, where he served as Executive Director from 2001 to 2006. Originally from Janesville, Robert currently lives in Milwaukee and works on a freelance basis with a wide array of community-based organizations and businesses that are working to create a new future for the food system.
