Michigan State director

Scott Everett is the director of American Farmland Trust’s Michigan State Office. His leadership responsibilities include educating elected officials, landowners, farmers and others in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio about farmland protection. His most extensive education project is the Ultimate Farmland Preservation Tour, a bus trip to the Mid-Atlantic to educate policymakers, elected officials and others from the Central Great Lakes region about how to create an effective farmland protection program. AFT is the coordinator of the recurring tour, which is sponsored by more than 25 other organizations. Everett also has convened numerous educational workshops within the region, including a series of workshops with 1,600 attending.

Everett also oversees AFT’s research projects, policy initiatives and land projects in the region. This includes a Cost of Community Services study in Calhoun County, Mich., the development and implementation of the Ohio Agricultural Easement Purchase Program, and the strengthening of Michigan’s farmland protection programs and policies.

Prior to joining AFT’s staff in 2000, Everett worked at the Michigan Farm Bureau for 11 years. For five years, he was the legislative counsel in the bureau’s Public Policy and Commodity Division. In this role, he helped develop state policies pertaining to land use, farmland protection, natural resources and environmental issues. Everett’s other roles at the farm bureau included working as a field representative with the Southeast Michigan county farm bureaus, then working with county farm bureaus throughout the state.

Everett received a bachelor of science degree in agricultural communications from Michigan State University’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in 1989. He grew up on a farm near Vermontville, Mich., and resides with his grandfather on their family farm near Mason, Mich., where they operate a part-time farmers’ market.