Assistant Director

Anita Zurbrugg, a licensed attorney, joined American Farmland Trust’s Center for Agriculture in the Environment (CAE) as assistant director in 2001. The center, operated jointly with Northern Illinois University's Social Science Research Institute in De Kalb, Illinois, serves as the focal point for AFT's public policy research. The center provides public opinion surveys, contingent valuation and fiscal impact studies, geographic information system mapping, and integrated pest management implementation to reduce the risks that farmers face in switching to better management practices. In her position as assistant director, Zurbrugg manages the center’s doctoral and law student research staff, provides legal and policy research support and directs regional and national agricultural land use and environmental research projects with academics from around the country.

Before coming to AFT, Zurbrugg practiced law in Illinois, focusing on transactional, agricultural and land use law. Raised on a farm, Zurbrugg started her agriculture career as an Illinois high school vocational agriculture teacher followed by several years as University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service Horticulture Extension Adviser for DeKalb County. She owned and operated a horticulture-consulting firm, and with her late husband and extended family grain farmed and co-managed Market Integrated Services, a commodity marketing management business operating in the upper Midwest.

Zurbrugg works closely with her local community’s citizen groups on land use, open space and farmland preservation initiatives and is on the board of directors for the community’s Kishwaukee Health Care System. Her interests also include managing her own 10-acre prairie restoration project. Zurbrugg’s J.D., M.A. in public policy and B.S. in biological sciences are from Northern Illinois University and her B.S. in agricultural education and landscape horticulture is from Ohio State University.