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The organization began in 1975 as the Institute for Food and Development Policy ( IFDP ).

The institute was founded by Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, and actually began in New York in Lappe ’ s basement before relocating to San Francisco, and then later to Oakland where it is presently located.

In 1977 the IFDP published its first work, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, and has since continued publishing policy briefs and analysis on the world food system and the inequalities that are caused by it.

Today's Food First is managed by a board of trustees that has five members with backgrounds in different non-profit organizations.

They have a shared vision of creating a more grass-roots based system of economic development through the endorsement of local and sustainable agriculture systems.

The organization's president is Joyce E. King, whose work in sociology has focused on “ women's participation in grass roots social change movements in Africa, South America and France ”.

In addition to the Board of Trustees, Food First has six staff members who work on the organization's policy briefs.

The staff's executive director is Eric Holt-Gimenez, who has published several books on global inequalities and the global food system, including Food Rebellions!

Crisis and the Hunger for Justice, which outlines seven steps to solving the world food crisis.

Finally, the organization benefits from the support of the general public through interns and volunteers who contribute to the process of policy research.

Food First is a think-tank composed of many individuals from many different backgrounds, who share the organization's aim of eliminating global inequalities through the rethinking of the world's emphasis on industry-based economics, and shifting the paradigm towards a more inclusive form of economic development.