Maysie's Farm Conservation Center - About Our Founder, Sam Cantrell

Samuel Cantrell, Executive Director of Maysie's Farm Conservation Center, is a conservationist who feels that conservation is education. His commitment to conservation is a consequence of his upbringing on Maysie's Farm, his work as a field biologist and, more than anything else, of his travels. In his youth he visited some three dozen countries on various trips which altogether totaled about four years on the road. After traveling around the world, seeing denuded forests, disrupted cultures, biodiversity under attack, and a human population which has more than doubled in his lifetime alone, Sam returned to this country convinced that we, as a species, are much "closer to the edge" than most Americans are willing to admit. And he felt compelled to do what he could to rectify that situation.

Sam adopted a widely used maxim as his personal motto: Think Globally, Act Locally. He came to understand that it doesn't just mean "Think globally, but since you don't have the opportunity to act globally, lead an ecologically responsible life at your local level." It means, "Act locally, for that is how you change the world" — a global perspective leads to local action.

So, acting locally, Sam returned to the farm where he was raised and began developing an educational organization that addresses concerns such as the sustainability of conventional agricultural practices, the quality of conventionally grown foods, the efficiency of long distance food distribution, the economic viability of small farms, the ecological soundness of suburban sprawl, and the effects of childhoods insulated from the natural world. Maysie's Farm Conservation Center promotes the concepts embodied by the slogan:

Think Globally, Eat Locally