Photo by Mitch Tobias
Nicolette Hahn Niman is rancher, attorney and writer. Much of her time is spent speaking and writing about the problems of industrialized livestock production, including the book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009) and three essays she has written on the subject for the New York Times.
Previously, she was the Senior Attorney for the environmental organization Waterkeeper Alliance where she was in charge of the organization's campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry, and, before that, an attorney for National Wildlife Federation.
Ms. Hahn Niman served two terms on the city council for the City of Kalamazoo, Michigan (pop. 80,000). She received her Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the University of Michigan and her B.A. in Biology and French from Kalamazoo College.
She lives in Bolinas, California with her husband, Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, a natural meat company supplied by a network of over 600 traditional farmers and ranchers. Together, the Nimans have launched a new natural meat company called BN Ranch.
Bill Niman is a cattle rancher in Northern California, proprietor of BN Ranch, and Founder of the natural meat company Niman Ranch, Inc. He was a member of the Pew Foundation's National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which released recommendations for reform of the nation's livestock industry in April 2008. Niman has been named "Food Artisan of the Year" by Bon Appetit magazine and has been called the "Master of Meat" by Wine Spectator, the "Guru of Happy Cows" by the Los Angeles Times, "a pioneer of the good meat movement" by the New York Times, "the Steve Jobs of Meat" by Men's Journal, and a "Pork Pioneer" by Food & Wine. The Southern Foodways Alliance named him its Scholar in Residence for 2009, stating that he was "this country's most provocative and persistent champion of sustainably and humanely raised livestock."
In 2007, Vanity Fair featured him in its "Green Issue" and Plenty magazine selected him as among the nation's five leading "green entrepreneurs." He has been honored with the Glynwood Harvest Good Neighbor Award by Glynwood Center, an organization that supports sustainable agriculture nationally and internationally. Niman co-authored The Niman Ranch Cookbook (Ten Speed Press, 2005), which was selected as one of the year's best cookbooks by the New York Times, Newsweek and the San Jose Mercury News. He lives and works his ranch in Bolinas, California, together with his wife Nicolette.