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Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau

Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau

Senior Policy Campaigner

Meet Tristan, our Senior Policy Campaigner here at ActionAid USA! He combines his passion for sustainable food systems with his storytelling flair to advance policies that promote food sovereignty, land rights, and agroecology. With a strong background in philosophy and political science, Tristan understands the power of grassroots movements and works closely with community organizations and allies to build coalitions that empower families and communities.

Tristan's early years were spent on a fruit and vegetable farm in southern Maine, where he developed his love for sustainable agriculture and selling sweet corn at a roadside stand. After completing his BA in Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Maine, he went on to earn his MA in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Before joining ActionAid in 2016, Tristan worked with social movements across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean as the Program Manager in the Global Movements Program at WhyHunger.

When Tristan isn't working towards climate justice, he is indulging in his passion for composting and urban container gardening.

Why are you working with ActionAid?  

I am working at ActionAid because I want to make the world a better place. I want to create a world where everyone takes care of each other and of the natural world, and AA is an organization that holds our leaders accountable and calls on all of us to live up to our ethical and moral responsibilities to each other. 

I’m an expert! Talk to me about:  

Food Security; Right to Food and Agriculture; Sustainable and Resilient Livelihoods; Climate Change; Climate Justice; Politics and Economics; Land Rights; Social justice. 

 

POSTS BY Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau

Insight /

Trump Weaponizes Childhood Food Assistance in Violation of the Human Right to Food

October 6, 2018 By

Last week, the Trump Administration announced that it would begin denying green cards and visa renewals to immigrants who have participated in nutrition assistance programs for their children, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid public housing assistance. Undocumented…

Insight / / / /

As Global Hunger, Land Grabbing, and Climate Change Continue, Time to Look at Root Causes in our Agriculture Policies

September 13, 2018 By

For over 10 years, we have campaigned against biofuels policies that drive agribusiness expansion and deforestation and contribute to hunger and poverty, land grabbing, and climate change. Biofuels like corn ethanol have been shown to be false solutions to climate change, and biofuels policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard have…

Insight / /

Trump Nominates Monsanto Seed Producer and Biofuels Baron as UN Ambassador for Food Security and Agriculture

August 2, 2018 By

Last month, we wrote a blog post highlighting the Trump administration’s hostility to the right to food, to international development for agriculture, and to international institutions and international cooperation to solve global problems. Not even a week after we put out that blog, the Trump administration announced that they had…

Insight / /

Bioenergy Is a False Solution for Communities and the Climate, and We Need Real Solutions for Rural Economies and Ecologies

June 15, 2018 By

Stopping climate change means transforming the model of both energy and the economy that relies on extraction, of both natural and human resources. Unfortunately, so many of the “solutions” to climate change – particularly bioenergy – are just technical changes that maintain the underlying extractive model. And because they are…

Insight / /

Biofuels Mandates Prop Up the “Get Big or Get Out” Model of Agribusiness in Iowa

May 2, 2018 By

Farmers in America are in crisis, and American agriculture is suffering. Decades of increasing consolidation in the food and agriculture sector have led to a handful of virtual monopolies that control every aspect of farming from seeds, to fertilizers, to livestock, to grain, to machinery, and potentially even the farmland…

Insight

State of the Union: Why I Won’t Be Watching

January 30, 2018 By

If there’s one thing I’ll be doing tonight, it will be to not watch the State of the Union. And I won’t be alone. Across the country, activists, lawmakers and celebrities alike are boycotting the speech and staging demonstrations to turn the nation’s attention toward urgent realities like climate change…