Eastern North Carolina is a place of flat fields to the horizon, small corner stores, barbecue spots that are only open Thursday-Saturday, and as Shorlette Ammons says, more pigs than people. She’s a native of Mount Olive, North Carolina, where she grew up in a large family of farmworkers, cooks, and storytellers, and we met last year when she presented at Thrive NC in Raleigh. She’s currently serving as Equity in Food Systems Associate with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at NC State University, which means in the broadest sense, she spends her days assessing and activating change within a Southern food system that often runs on an auto pilot of inequity. But it’s her practicality, her love for people, and her intense wealth of knowledge can help us see a different future.