Chris Smith is executive director of The Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing nonprofit working to celebrate food and farming. Within this work, Chris collaborates on the Heirloom Collard Project, hosts a seasonal Trial to Table event series, and publishes Crop Stories, a crop-specific multimedia project. His first book with Chelsea Green, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020, and he is the co-host of The Okra Pod Cast. In 2023 Chris received the Organic Educator Award from The Organic Growers School and was named a Champion of Conservation by Garden & Gun.