Linda F. Hezel

Linda Hezel holds a B.S.N. from Avila University and an M.S.N. in Community Health Nursing from Emory University and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in adult learning from University of Missouri – Kansas City. She is currently the ecosystems steward and artisanal producer at Prairie Birthday Farm LLC.  While producing flavorful, nutrient dense ingredients, the farm also serves as a teaching laboratory where Linda shares the science, craft and art of artisanal food growing with chefs, farmers, gardeners, nutritionists, naturalists, artists, and others to promote regenerative agroforestry and an understanding of healthy food for nutritional wellness.

She has provided professional nursing services in the areas of critical care, home health, advanced nursing practice as a community health specialist, and as a certified family nurse practitioner.  In 1991 she transitioned from a tenured associate professor position with the UMKC School of Nursing to role as mother of 2 sons.  Linda’s work in ecosystem stewardship at Prairie Birthday Farm operationalizes the 2008 American Nurses Association House of Delegates resolution directing nurses to “participate in and promote nutritious foods from sustainable local food systems so as to improve eating habits, increase patient and public health, and support the long-term social, economic, and environmental well-being of workers, communities and global health”.

In April 2016 she was an invited panelist for National Public Radio’s “Going There – How We Eat” with Michel Martin. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Missouri Prairie Foundation Journal, Missouri Life Magazine, High Plains Journal, Feast Magazine – Midwest, Feast TV, Northland Lifestyle Magazine, bluestem: the cookbook, American Journal of Nursing, Kansas City Star, Missouri Harvest, Columbia Tribune, and more.