Lorette Picciano has served since 1992 as Executive Director of the Rural Coalition, a Washington, DC-based alliance of more than 60 culturally diverse community based organizations representing small producers and farmworkers in the US and Mexico. She works with RC’s diverse Board and members to promote just and sustainable development in rural areas, particularly in civil rights in agriculture. She has participated in 7 Farm Bill Debates and coordinated a unified effort to assure equal access to USDA programs for farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers helping to secure more than 30 sections of new Farm Bill Policies.

Her education includes a BS in Agriculture and Life Sciences from Cornell University in 1976, and an M. Ed. from the University of Hawaii, where she was a participant in the Food Institute of the East-West Center and did fieldwork in the rural Philippines. Prior to joining the Rural Coalition, she worked since 1980 in Washington DC with several interfaith organizations on the farm crisis of the late 1980’s, on equity in food and farm policy, and on food security and fair trade issues.  With future colleagues in the Rural Coalition she helped secure farm credit borrowers’ rights and programs for historically underserved farmers in the 1987 Agriculture Credit Act and Section 2501 of the 1990 Farm Bill. She has long served on the Steering Committee for the USDA National Small Farmers Conference and also serves on the Boards of Directors of Agriculture Missions, Inc., and the Solidarity Economy Network.