Fred Bahnson
Fred Bahnson, Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute, is a writer and farmer living near Asheville, North Carolina. He is the co-founder and former director of Anathoth Community Garden, an experiment in church-supported agriculture in Cedar Grove, North Carolina. An organic garden, which fosters a sacramental life based on growing and sharing food together, Anathoth opened in 2005 and has since become a nationally-recognized model for how churches can serve their communities by increasing local food security.
After four years directing Anathoth Fred has moved on to pursue writing projects. He is currently a Food & Society Policy Fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy where he writes about food and faith issues. With a master’s degree in theology from Duke Divinity School, eight years of sustainable farming experience, and the authority of a practitioner in faith-based community agriculture, Fred brings both a progressive voice to faith communities and a religious voice to progressive communities.
Fred’s essays, poems, and articles have appeared in Orion, The Sun, Sojourners, Christian Century, Best American Spiritual Writing 2007, and Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa. Awards include the 2006 Pilgrimage Essay Award, a 2008 Associated Church Press Award of Excellence, and a 2008 William Raney scholarship in nonfiction at Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.
Fred grew up as a missionary kid in Nigeria. Before becoming a farmer he taught college courses on liberation theology and indigenous resistance in Mexico, Honduras, and Bolivia, and worked as a peaceworker among indigenous coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico.
Fred lives with his wife and their two sons in the western North Carolina mountains.
Farmed Out: Wes Jackson On The Need To Reinvent Agriculture
The Sun, October 2010
Organic by NecessityThe Christian Century, August 24, 2010
A Garden Becomes A Protest
Orion, July/August 2007
Martyr's Mirror
The Sun, June 2009
Time for Cristus Victor Gardens?
Sojourners, March 2009