[lofo List] Tom Lyson (via JoAnn Jaffe)

[Daryl Hepting <hepting@cs.uregina.ca>]

Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:47:43 -0800
From: "JoAnn Jaffe" <joann.jaffe@gmail.com>
To: "Local Food Directory Project" <lofo@cs.uregina.ca>
Subject: Tom Lyson

Sadly, I share the unhappy news that Tom Lyson passed away from cancer
late Thursday, December 28. His death is a great loss to all who work
in the sustainable and alternative agriculture movements.

About fifteen years ago Tom brought the Community, Food and
Agriculture Program  (then the Farming Alternatives Program) to the
Development Sociology Department at Cornell. Over time under his
leadership the program's main focus shifted from
supporting individual alternative agricultural enterprises to
supporting strategies of food and agriculture based community
development that would promote community contexts that would enable
people to pursue small & mid-size enterprises that, in turn, would
benefit their communities. He served as the program's director until
two years ago. Tom's concept of Civic Agriculture emerged from his
efforts to connect sociological theory and the grounded practical
work undertaken through CFAP. He inspired many graduate and
undergraduate students to pursue research topics that were highly
pertinent to the approach promoted by FAP/CFAP. Over the last couple
of years Tom was part of a national effort in the USA to examine ways  
that would
enable mid-size farms to survive through new marketing arrangements
under a strategy dubbed "agriculture of the middle." Through these
and other avenues he worked hard to seamlessly interweave research,
outreach, and teaching in service to what he understood to be core of
the Land Grant Mission.

Condolences may be sent to his wife, Loretta Carrillo, and
daughters, Mercy and Helena Lyson, at:
1 Union Street
BOX 112
FREEVILLE NY 13068

The family has asked that any donations in Tom's memory be made to
Memorial-Sloan Kettering Research, 1275 York Ave., New York, New
York 10021.

JoAnn Jaffe
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