Faye Margaret Jones was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1960. She graduated from high school in Roseville, Minnesota, in 1978, and from the Minnesota Institute of Medical Assistants in 1980. After attending two years at the University of Minnesota, she apprenticed at organic farms in Minnesota and Europe in the early 1980s. In 1984, she began farming organically in Spring Valley, Wisconsin, with her husband, Mark Plunkett, raising Highland cattle, chickens, flowers, and garlic, operating as Morning Glory Farm.
Jones served on the board of the International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (IASA, 1982-1985), acted as the primary staff person for the Wisconsin Organic Growers Association (WOGA, 1989-1990), and participated in a Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection committee (1988-1990) which helped to write the Wisconsin state organic standards. She was one of the organizers for the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference (UMOFC) when it started in 1990 (with 90 attendees), and led the conference planning efforts through 2016 (with over 3400 attendees). She served as the outreach coordinator (1995-1999) for the Educational Fund of Wisconsin Chapter #1 of the Organic Crop Improvement Association (WI OCIA), where she organized events and made resources about organic agriculture available. When WI OCIA became the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) in 1999, Jones became its Executive Director, a post she held through 2016. February 27, 2016, the final day of the 2016 UMOFC, was declared “Faye Jones Day,” by the mayor of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, the site of the conference since the year 2000. She served on the Advisory Council for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls School of Agriculture from 2005 to 2010, and was awarded an honor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) in 2015.
Jones also served as board chair (2014-2018) of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). She has worked as the farm policy coordinator for the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship program (2016-2018), and continues to farm and work on behalf of sustainable agriculture initiatives.
