Atina Diffley

Atina Diffley is an organic consultant (Organic Farming Works LLC), educator, public speaker, and author of the 2012 memoir, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works, published by the University of Minnesota Press. She is the editor and designer of Roger Blobaum’s Organic History Website, and a contributing author and lead trainer for Wholesale Success: A Farmers Guide to Selling, Postharvest Handling and Packing Produce. Until 2008, she and her husband Martin ran the Gardens of Eagan, one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest. For reflections, tips and decision-making tools subscribe to her on-line blog, What Is A Farm.

Landuse issues have been a central point of entry for Atina’s organic advocacy. In 1989, the 5th-generation Diffley family land was lost to suburban development.The Diffleys collaborated with filmmaker Helen DeMichiel to create the award-winningdocumentary, Turn Here Sweet Corn: The video. Filmed on the Diffley land in Eagan and in the surrounding community, the video focuses on the loss of greenbelt farmlands to suburbia.

The Diffley’s started over on new land, but faced eminent domain again in 2006 when threatened by a crude oil pipeline owned by notorious polluters, Koch Industries. The Diffleys intervened as legal parties in the route proceeding and with the help of committed customers, attorney Paula Maccabee, expert witnesses, and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, succeeded in creating an Organic Mitigation Plan that provides protections for the soil and certification of threatened organic farms in Minnesota. Atina can be reached at www.atinadiffley.com.