Charles W. Fluharty, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, is president emeritus and director of policy programs at the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Barbara J. Dilly is associate professor of anthropology at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. Her research interests include the rural church and American agriculture.

Daryll E. Ray is a professor and holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He directs the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. See a column on the 2012 farm bill that he wrote with Harwood Schaffer, research assistant professor for the center.

The Rev. L. LaSimba M. Gray Jr., pastor of New Sardis Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., lobbied Congress on behalf of Bread for the World for reforms in the 2007 farm bill.

Norman Wirzba is professor of theology and ecology at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. His research focuses on “understanding and promoting practices that can equip both rural and urban church communities to be more faithful and responsible members of creation,” specifically through eating as a spiritual discipline, theological reflection as informed by place and agrarianism […]

Daniel Vestal was the executive coordinator of the Atlanta-headquartered Cooperative Baptist Fellowship until 2012. He lobbied Congress about the 2007 farm bill for reforms aimed at helping rural areas and poor farmers.

Eva Clayton is a former Democratic congresswoman from North Carolina who worked with Bread for the World for change in the 2007 farm bill.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., serves on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. He did not support the farm bill that came out of that committee.

Howard Leathers is an associate professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and specializes in agricultural policy.