Earlier this month, Sakeenah Shabazz departed her position as Policy Director for the Berkeley Food Institute to take on a new role as Senior Policy Advisor for the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at the US Department of Agriculture. In her new role, Shabazz will be working with FNS Administrator Cindy Long in Washington, DC. FNS covers the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the National School Breakfast and School Lunch Programs, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), and much more.

Shabazz played an invaluable role on the BFI team. She started working with the Berkeley Food Institute as a Policy Assistant while pursuing a Master of Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School. In that role, she researched California’s Great Plates Delivered program and authored a research report on the success of the program, which supported restaurants and delivered meals to isolated seniors during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As Policy Director, Shabazz actively worked to advance our mission of creating a just and equitable farm and food system. Among many of her projects, she led BFI’s Farm Bill programs alongside former Executive Director Nina Ichikawa by co-facilitating the Farm Bill Seminar at UC Berkeley and organizing a 2023 Farm Bill summit and congressional briefing in Washington, DC, in partnership with American University and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. The summit, like much of Shabazz’s work, championed justice and equity by connecting people to the policymaking process.