We talk with Anthony Flaccavento about his work in bridging the rural-urban divide, coming from Baltimore to Appalachia, and why farming keeps him humble. Listen to Everywhere Radio wherever you stream podcasts. Flaccavento is the co-founder of RUBI, the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative.

Flaccavento is also farmer and rural development consultant from Abingdon, Virginia in the heart of the Appalachian Coalfields. The Founder of Appalachian Sustainable Development, Flaccavento has focused most of his work over the past four decades on building healthier food systems and more diverse, locally rooted economies in Appalchia and around the world. His consulting firm, SCALE, Inc, works with communities across the nation to evaluate, plan and build healthier farm and food systems and local economies.

Flaccavento is the author of Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up: Harnessing Real World Experience for Transformative Change (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), along with “Healthy Food Systems: A Toolkit for Building Value Chains” (self-published) and scores of articles and op-eds. He writes and speaks regularly on rural development, bottom up economics, overcoming the rural-urban divide and and a range of political and cultural issues. He has taught course on these topics at Future Generations University, Emory & Henry College and community colleges.

Flaccavento was the Democratic Candidate for the U.S. House in 2018, and remains involved in trying to impact politics and the public debate. He is the co-founder of RUBI, the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative, through which he works with colleagues to lead public forums and trainings designed to help people understand and begin to overcome the rural-urban divide. He has also compiled The Rural-Urban Divide: A Guidebook to Understanding the Problem and Forging Solutions. He is married to Laurel, a retired public school teacher, and has three terrific grown children.

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