It didn’t make much sense that Alli Condra developed an interest in food- and agriculture-related issues.
The daughter of a retired ELCA pastor, she grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Manhattan Beach, which is hardly farming territory. But something kept drawing her to food, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.’
After several stops along the way, Condra, a lifelong Lutheran looking for a new home congregation, is an associate attorney in Portland, Ore., focusing on policy issues facing the food, beverage and restaurant industries.
“How to change policy can impact a lot of people and help people live a healthier life,” Condra said.
After graduating from California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, she spent a year in Mexico, during which she conducted a survey on food security for the migrant workers in the area.
Condra later attended law school and planned to work in government on issues such as school lunches. But law school “exposed me to a lot more options,” she said.
She served as a policy intern for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency and was a contributor to the online “Food Safety News” publication before moving more toward work that would help local and regional food growers.
Her current work involves not only assisting her community in being able to access healthy food, but also helping small agriculture businesses to not go bankrupt as they try to comply with government regulations.
Regulations are important, she said, but you don’t need to “put people out of business for us to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Helping more people live healthy lives is a major tenet for Condra. “It drives my career choices,” she said. “We are using the law to help and support businesses that are going to sustain our healthy food system going forward.”
