Michele Payn
CSP
IN, USSpeaking from the intersection of farm & food, head & heart.
Michele Payn personifies passion. Known as one of North America's leading experts in connecting farm and food, she serves as a resource for people around the plate. Michele delivers high energy training programs and motivational keynotes to empower organizations to build connected communities. Her content is known for reaching hearts to move minds.
Entrepreneur.
Utilizing her diverse professional experience in the agricultural, sales and not-for-profit sectors, Michele founded Cause Matters Corp., a company designed to build connections around the food plate, in 2001. Cause Matters Corp. focuses on addressing food myths, developing science communication, and bringing a unique look to health & wellness.
Farm girl. Mom. Science enthusiast.
She knows how food because she lives agriculture. Payn holds degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science from Michigan State University, where she saw science come to life firsthand as a student worker in the animal reproductive physiology laboratory. Michele is past president of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Alumni Association and had the impact of her work featured in one of the first Spartan Sagas. Career highlights include a Regional Directorship for the National FFA Foundation, where she sold over $5 million in corporate sponsorships and led campaigns to develop community support. She has also marketed and sold dairy genetics to more than 25 countries, managed e-business accounts and presented training programs in developing countries. Michele still holds her firsthand farm experience as the best contributor to her work.
Her lifelong passion for agriculture stems from childhood; she has been breeding and judging dairy cattle as a registered Holstein breeder since the age of nine and now resides on a small central Indiana farm. She enjoys working on the farm with her 'city slicker' husband and cow-loving daughter, making memories with friends, coaching 4-H & FFA members and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.
International award winning author. Food translator.
Michele has been baking since she was a young girl, but became a full-fledged foodie when she lived in Italy as a college student. Her last book was just awarded an IPPY bronze medal for medicine, health, and nutrition. "Food Truths from Farm to Table: 25 Ways to Shop & Eat Without Guilt", a #1 best seller on Amazon, brings clarity to grocery shopping and address food marketing myths. She also wrote the two-sided book "No More Food Fights! Growing a Productive Farm & Food Conversation" to encourage farm and food people to reach across the plate to find commonalities.
Michele's newest book, "Food Bullying: How to Avoid Buying B.S., is a #1 Best Seller and Hot New Release. This startling look at the misrepresentation of food sheds light on bogus nutrition and environmental claims to help people recognize and stand up to the bullies. She most recently became a podcast host, launching the "Food Bullying Podcast" to help more people understand the epidemic of food bullying and how it negatively impacts their wellness.
Innovator.
Michele's strong belief in community-building and overcoming food insecurity stems from experience on four continents, including working in the Ukraine and Egypt, through United States Agency for International Development (USAID) projects. She has been selected as a Face of Innovation and is also active in her central Indiana community, volunteering with FFA, 4-H, church, and school.
Payn continues to hone her skills after helping thousands of people around the world. As a member of the National Speakers Association, Michele is the founder of a professional networking group for generation X and Y speakers. She has earned her Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), a designation awarded to less than 10% of professional speakers globally.
Michele founded #AgChat and #FoodChat on Twitter, in April 2009. Tens of thousands of people from more than 25 countries participated in this highly visible conversation around food and farm issues. This community nominated Michele as one of Mashable's Top Three Twitter User's of the Year in 2009, putting agriculture alongside celebrities.
Michele measures success in conversations around the food plate.
Speaking from the intersection of farm & food, head & heart.
Michele Payn personifies passion. Known as one of North America's leading experts in connecting farm and food, she serves as a resource for people around the plate. Michele delivers high energy training programs and motivational keynotes to empower organizations to build connected communities. Her content is known for reaching hearts to move minds.
Entrepreneur.
Utilizing her diverse professional experience in the agricultural, sales and not-for-profit sectors, Michele founded Cause Matters Corp., a company designed to build connections around the food plate, in 2001. Cause Matters Corp. focuses on addressing food myths, developing science communication, and bringing a unique look to health & wellness.
Farm girl. Mom. Science enthusiast.
She knows how food because she lives agriculture. Payn holds degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science from Michigan State University, where she saw science come to life firsthand as a student worker in the animal reproductive physiology laboratory. Michele is past president of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Alumni Association and had the impact of her work featured in one of the first Spartan Sagas. Career highlights include a Regional Directorship for the National FFA Foundation, where she sold over $5 million in corporate sponsorships and led campaigns to develop community support. She has also marketed and sold dairy genetics to more than 25 countries, managed e-business accounts and presented training programs in developing countries. Michele still holds her firsthand farm experience as the best contributor to her work.
Her lifelong passion for agriculture stems from childhood; she has been breeding and judging dairy cattle as a registered Holstein breeder since the age of nine and now resides on a small central Indiana farm. She enjoys working on the farm with her 'city slicker' husband and cow-loving daughter, making memories with friends, coaching 4-H & FFA members and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.
International award winning author. Food translator.
Michele has been baking since she was a young girl, but became a full-fledged foodie when she lived in Italy as a college student. Her last book was just awarded an IPPY bronze medal for medicine, health, and nutrition. "Food Truths from Farm to Table: 25 Ways to Shop & Eat Without Guilt", a #1 best seller on Amazon, brings clarity to grocery shopping and address food marketing myths. She also wrote the two-sided book "No More Food Fights! Growing a Productive Farm & Food Conversation" to encourage farm and food people to reach across the plate to find commonalities.
Michele's newest book, "Food Bullying: How to Avoid Buying B.S., is a #1 Best Seller and Hot New Release. This startling look at the misrepresentation of food sheds light on bogus nutrition and environmental claims to help people recognize and stand up to the bullies. She most recently became a podcast host, launching the "Food Bullying Podcast" to help more people understand the epidemic of food bullying and how it negatively impacts their wellness.
Innovator.
Michele's strong belief in community-building and overcoming food insecurity stems from experience on four continents, including working in the Ukraine and Egypt, through United States Agency for International Development (USAID) projects. She has been selected as a Face of Innovation and is also active in her central Indiana community, volunteering with FFA, 4-H, church, and school.
Payn continues to hone her skills after helping thousands of people around the world. As a member of the National Speakers Association, Michele is the founder of a professional networking group for generation X and Y speakers. She has earned her Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), a designation awarded to less than 10% of professional speakers globally.
Michele founded #AgChat and #FoodChat on Twitter, in April 2009. Tens of thousands of people from more than 25 countries participated in this highly visible conversation around food and farm issues. This community nominated Michele as one of Mashable's Top Three Twitter User's of the Year in 2009, putting agriculture alongside celebrities.
Michele measures success in conversations around the food plate.
Don't Buy the B.S.: How food bullying hurts your health
There's too much fear in food today. International award-winning author Michele Payn upends the way we've been led to think about food, illustrating the manipulation of our brains by the $5.75 trillion food business. She takes a lively look at the way misinformation, marketing half-truths, and label claims are messing with your brain. She reveals how food is big business, with profits fed by fear-based marketing. This fear hurts...
Finding Food Truths
Do you dread going to the grocery store? Does food often make you feel guilty because it's not the "right" choice? Are you just concerned about having good food for your family? Does all the information and emotion around nutrition make you want to throw your hands in the air?
If this describes you or your clients, Michele is ready to help your healthcare, dietitian, executive women or nutrition group celebrate food. After all, food is at...
Making Science Sexy! Communicating Your Relevance
A workshop to help scientists step out of the ivory tower and show how meaningful their work is to the rest of the world. Science communications? It is a necessity today to overcome eroding credibility, questions of scientific integrity and the proliferation of misinformation. Learn from Michele's common sense approach to translating technical jargon to the rest of the world.
Resiliency for Agriculture: Surviving the darkest storms
Farmers die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of the general U.S. population. Mental health challenges in agriculture is a global issue: an Australian farmer takes their life every four days, more than 270,000 farmers in India have died by suicide in the last 25 years, and a U.K. farmer commits suicide each...
Celebrating Agriculture
Michele will help you stand up and celebrate the people, promise and passion in our business. Laugh and cry while celebrating work from the farm gate to the consumer plate. Find inspiration for agriculture from one of our own. You'll find new "fighting moves" that will get you thinking about our opportunity for the conversation around the plate in this keynote.
Take Food Bullying by the Horns
Have you ever been frustrated by the 200,000+ food labels in the grocery store? Are you tired of the divide between people eating and those producing food? Do you worry about losing your freedom to farm?
What is food bullying? The need to position one food as superior to another lies at the heart of food bullying. Bullying doesn't happen without fear-and there's a whole lot of fear in food today! Food bullying literally takes food out of someone's hand-by removing...
Championing Agriculture
Feel like people are clueless about where their food comes from? Frustrated by the way agriculture is portrayed in the media? Wondering why legislators don't seem to value farms and age? Michele will help you leverage the trust invested in farmers by building human connections. You'll walk out with 6.5 easy-to-remember & and practical tools to put to work.
Certifications & Awards
