Susan E. Stokes was appointed to the position of Assistant Commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) in November 2016. Stokes brings a wealth of experience working with Minnesota farmers and farm organizations having spent 14 years at the Farmers’ Legal Action Group Inc. (FLAG) in St. Paul, first as FLAG’s Legal Director and then as the organization’s Executive Director. As Assistant Commissioner, Stokes currently oversees three of the MDA’s regulatory divisions – Pesticide and Fertilizer Management, Dairy and Meat Inspection, and Food and Feed Safety, as well as the agency’s Laboratory Services.

Meg Moynihan is a senior advisor at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. For many years she managed the MDA’s organic program. She also previously worked as a program director, educator, and evaluator, and served with the U.S Peace Corps-Thailand. Moynihan owns and operates a diversified 70 cow organic dairy farm with her husband Kevin Stuedemann. In 2016 the Stuedemanns lost their milk market and Meg took a leave of absence to run the farm singlehandedly, experiencing the stress, anxiety, burnout, and depression common to many farmers.

Jeff Peterson is a principal shareholder with Gray Plant Mooty, a law firm with offices in Minneapolis, St. Cloud, Fargo and Washington, D.C. He focuses his practice on commercial transactions, creditor’s rights, bankruptcy and agricultural and food law. Jeff has a background in agribusiness having worked for Country Hedging, Inc., the commodity trading division of CHS, as a commodity branch manager and market analyst in Kansas City where he advised clients on commodity hedging strategies, and trading agricultural futures and options for grain and livestock producers and grain cooperatives in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado.

He is a frequent speaker on agriculture and finance topics, is a former chair of the American Bar Association Agricultural and Agribusiness Financing Subcommittee, and is the current chair of GPM’s Commercial Financial Services Practice Group. He grew up on a dairy farm in northwest Wisconsin, is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law, and received an LL.M. degree in agricultural law from the University of Arkansas.