Illinois Corn recently welcomed Rachel Dame to their team as the new Public Policy Manager. Dame joins the team after working as a lobbyist for Faegre Drinker Law Firm, an Agriculture, Transportation, and Tribal Affairs Policy Advisor for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and a Policy Advisor for the Illinois Commerce Commission.
Even without a farm background, her passion for agriculture grew through her work in public policy,
“I grew up in North Carolina. I didn’t grow up on a farm or anything. I fell in love with food policy and ag during my undergrad at NC State University,” said Dame. “I took a food science class and that really piqued my interest in agriculture, because I was like, I never had thought until where does our food come from? What does this mean? So that’s really kind of where I started in Ag, and then always had a passion for public policy and legislative affairs, so it was always in that realm.”
Dame will represent Illinois Corn as a policy advisor on a state and federal level. As she starts her career with the organization, Dame says she looks forward to exploring opportunities for corn in the current market.
