Erin Meier

Erin Meier is Director of Green Lands Blue Waters, a collaborative initiative focused on shifting the agricultural landscape of the Upper Mississippi River Basin to more acres of continuous living cover to improve water quality, soil health, and agricultural and community resilience. Previously, Erin served for 14 years as Executive Director of the University of Minnesota Southeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnership. She has over 20 years of experience and training in sustainable agriculture, local food systems, food access, natural resource conservation, clean energy, community engagement and development, and facilitating cross-sector work groups and networks. Erin holds an MS in Sustainable Agriculture from Iowa State University. She was a member of the first cohort of the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture and worked with Professor of Economics Mike Duffy through the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, studying local food systems, consumer behavior, and external costs of agriculture. Erin is a geographer at heart with a BS in Geography from the University of Illinois and past experience as a cartographer and geographic information systems analyst. She grew up at the near-end of the commuter line NE of Chicago in what was at the time a semi-rural, sort of small town.