November 20, 2025
Everything Co-op launches its spotlight on the 2025 Innovation Award recipients with Michael Parker and Lindsey Lusher Shute, co-founders of Farm Generations Cooperative. In this interview, Michael and Lindsey discuss how Farm Generations empowers its members through GrownBy, their farmer-owned software platform, and how the Innovation Award will help advance their mission.
Lindsey Lusher Shute co-founded the National Young Farmers Coalition and served as its executive director for a decade. She is also an owner of Hearty Roots Farm, a diversified vegetable and livestock farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. During her tenure at Young Farmers, Lindsey built a national network of 150,000 farmers and advocates, advancing grassroots efforts around land access, conservation, credit, student debt, and farmer training. She has delivered keynote addresses at conferences nationwide.
Michael Parker has built a diverse career spanning agriculture, food, entrepreneurship, and education. A first-generation farmer, he is currently developing a grassfed beef operation in Cooperstown, NY. Mike also works on land access and business services initiatives with the National Young Farmers Coalition and oversees a farm viability grant program and business planning course for the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and Operations Information Management from Georgetown University.
Farm Generations Cooperative is dedicated to empowering local farmers and fostering transparency throughout the food supply chain. Blending innovative technology with agricultural traditions, the cooperative strives to create a more just and sustainable future for food producers and consumers alike. In 2019, the cooperative launched GrownBy, the first free, farmer-owned software platform designed for local farm sales. By connecting growers directly with customers across the country, GrownBy promotes fair, efficient exchanges and helps small farmers succeed collectively strengthening local communities and building a more resilient agricultural system.
The Co-op Innovation Award honors organizations that strengthen food, housing, and worker co-ops. Each year, recipients receive up to $50,000 to expand cooperative development, drive shared prosperity, and build lasting community impact through innovative collaboration.
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November 20, 2025
Everything Co-op launches its spotlight on the 2025 Innovation Award recipients with Michael Parker and Lindsey Lusher Shute, co-founders of Farm Generations Cooperative. In this interview, Michael and Lindsey discuss how Farm Generations empowers its members through GrownBy, their farmer-owned software platform, and how the Innovation Award will help advance their mission.
Lindsey Lusher Shute co-founded the National Young Farmers Coalition and served as its executive director for a decade. She is also an owner of Hearty Roots Farm, a diversified vegetable and livestock farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. During her tenure at Young Farmers, Lindsey built a national network of 150,000 farmers and advocates, advancing grassroots efforts around land access, conservation, credit, student debt, and farmer training. She has delivered keynote addresses at conferences nationwide.
Michael Parker has built a diverse career spanning agriculture, food, entrepreneurship, and education. A first-generation farmer, he is currently developing a grassfed beef operation in Cooperstown, NY. Mike also works on land access and business services initiatives with the National Young Farmers Coalition and oversees a farm viability grant program and business planning course for the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and Operations Information Management from Georgetown University.
Farm Generations Cooperative is dedicated to empowering local farmers and fostering transparency throughout the food supply chain. Blending innovative technology with agricultural traditions, the cooperative strives to create a more just and sustainable future for food producers and consumers alike. In 2019, the cooperative launched GrownBy, the first free, farmer-owned software platform designed for local farm sales. By connecting growers directly with customers across the country, GrownBy promotes fair, efficient exchanges and helps small farmers succeed collectively strengthening local communities and building a more resilient agricultural system.
The Co-op Innovation Award honors organizations that strengthen food, housing, and worker co-ops. Each year, recipients receive up to $50,000 to expand cooperative development, drive shared prosperity, and build lasting community impact through innovative collaboration.
June 26, 2025 -
Michael Peck and Dr. Christina Clamp to discuss the 2nd Volume of "Humanity@Work&life-Global Diffusion of the Mondragon Cooperative Ecosystem Experience.”
Michael Peck co-founded 1worker1vote in 2014, alongside ten advisory board members, to build on the 2009 United Steelworkers/Mondragon Collaboration MOU and the 2012 Union-Coop Model. He currently serves as the organization's Executive Director. In early 2015, 1worker1vote was incorporated as a New York 501(c)(3) by CUNY Law School’s Community Economic Development Clinic.
Drawing inspiration from Mondragon’s 70-year cooperative ecosystem, 1worker1vote is leading the “Good Trouble Capitalism” and “Generation Union” campaigns under its 2025 initiative. These efforts promote global Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) principles, community enterprise development, authentic sustainability metrics, predistributive financing, and cooperative-mutualist housing best practices. Central to its mission is advancing hybrid worker ownership and workplace democracy through union-coop models.
Current collaborations include:
The Coalition for Affordable, Cooperative-Mutualist Housing (NY project)
ASETT (Mondragon-inspired SSE think-and-do tank)
UNRISD and ASETT on Sustainable Development Performance Indicators
The Mutualist Society
American Sustainable Business Network
Coop Cincy
NewsSocial Coop (UK)
Worx Printing (union-coop)
Blue-Green Alliance
Humanity@Work&Life publications
Dr. Christina Clamp is heralded for her diverse work grounded in the values of civil rights, social justice and an inclusive economy. She is best known for her research on Mondragon, the world’s largest worker cooperative. The results of her deep interviews with Mondragon managers and founders continue to inform human resource strategies for worker co-ops worldwide. Her extensive list of publications includes, most recently, a collection of 30 essays highlighting the story of Mondragon and its ongoing influence in the U.S. UK, Korea and Germany, Humanity@ Work & Life, coedited with Michael Peck.
For more than 40 years Professor Clamp taught college courses on cooperatives and led a master’s program in community economic development at Southern New Hampshire University. As an activist professor, Chris expected her students to be engaged with community groups, particularly those that support existing and developing co-ops. Her work crosses sectors in cooperative development: from cutting-edge research on worker and shared-services cooperatives to training generations of cooperators to building and connecting cooperatives to broader movements for community economic development and the social solidarity economy, Chris is a steadfast champion of cooperatives.
Chris serves on the boards of the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund (LEAF), The ICA Group, and The Fund for Jobs Worth Owning.
“Humanity@Work&life - Global Diffusion of the Mondragon Cooperative Ecosystem Experience 2nd Edition” , published by Oak Tree Press, frames a collective labor of earned merit, vision and determination by 36 contributors in six countries, three continents, proving how solidarity, innovation, and conviction forge sustaining local and global social economy practice on behalf of the greater common good.
Everything Co-op with Vernon Oakes
November 20, 2025
Everything Co-op launches its spotlight on the 2025 Innovation Award recipients with Michael Parker and Lindsey Lusher Shute, co-founders of Farm Generations Cooperative. In this interview, Michael and Lindsey discuss how Farm Generations empowers its members through GrownBy, their farmer-owned software platform, and how the Innovation Award will help advance their mission.
Lindsey Lusher Shute co-founded the National Young Farmers Coalition and served as its executive director for a decade. She is also an owner of Hearty Roots Farm, a diversified vegetable and livestock farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. During her tenure at Young Farmers, Lindsey built a national network of 150,000 farmers and advocates, advancing grassroots efforts around land access, conservation, credit, student debt, and farmer training. She has delivered keynote addresses at conferences nationwide.
Michael Parker has built a diverse career spanning agriculture, food, entrepreneurship, and education. A first-generation farmer, he is currently developing a grassfed beef operation in Cooperstown, NY. Mike also works on land access and business services initiatives with the National Young Farmers Coalition and oversees a farm viability grant program and business planning course for the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and Operations Information Management from Georgetown University.
Farm Generations Cooperative is dedicated to empowering local farmers and fostering transparency throughout the food supply chain. Blending innovative technology with agricultural traditions, the cooperative strives to create a more just and sustainable future for food producers and consumers alike. In 2019, the cooperative launched GrownBy, the first free, farmer-owned software platform designed for local farm sales. By connecting growers directly with customers across the country, GrownBy promotes fair, efficient exchanges and helps small farmers succeed collectively strengthening local communities and building a more resilient agricultural system.
The Co-op Innovation Award honors organizations that strengthen food, housing, and worker co-ops. Each year, recipients receive up to $50,000 to expand cooperative development, drive shared prosperity, and build lasting community impact through innovative collaboration.
