Agriculture and food systems have been the central focus of Duncan Hilchey’s entire professional life. He was raised in Huntsville, Alabama, the son of a tenant-farm cotton picker and an entomologist. After several youthful dalliances in organic gardening and small livestock production, he discovered that his contribution to agriculture and food systems was not going to be in farming. His first job after receiving his B.S. in agricultural education at the University of New Hampshire in 1981 was as a VISTA volunteer with the Central New Hampshire Agricultural Marketing Project, where he established one of the first mobile farmers’ markets in the U.S. catering to low-income and senior housing facilities. He also co-authored a publication on organizing grower cooperatives.

He later received his masters in city and regional planning (with a specialty in food systems) at Cornell University. He worked 20 years at Cornell as an agriculture development specialist with the Farming Alternatives Program, which later became the Community Food and Agriculture Program (under the direction of the late Tom Lyson). Today, Duncan has left the confines of academia and is enjoying the freedom of working with some of the most cutting-edge food systems and agriculture development projects around North America.

With funding from the National Geographic Society, the Kellogg Foundation, and the New York Agriculture Experiment Station, his most recent work has focused on GIS mapping of local food systems, studying agricultural heritage areas, and developing local food system sustainability indicators. He is an authority on regional identity and recently had a paper published by the Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation entitled "Gôut de Terroir (Taste of Place): Exploring the Boundaries of Unique Agricultural Landscapes."