Lisa Hamilton is a writer and photographer who focuses on agriculture and rural communities. Her work has taken her from indigenous quinoa farms in the highlands of Bolivia to a meeting of radical plant breeders in Iowa; from sacred rice paddies in rural Japan to crusty livestock auction yards in California's Central Valley. She is the author of Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness and has written for Harper's, McSweeney's, Virginia Quarterly Review, California Sunday, and The Atlantic. Her 2014 article "The Quinoa Quarrel" won the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for writing on Food Politics, Policy and the Environment.

As a fellow with the Alicia Patterson Foundation in 2010, she explored the uncertain future that American agriculture faces as a result of climate change, depleted water resources, and the end of cheap energy. More recently she has focused on her home state of California, exploring its rural communities and landscapes for the multimedia work Real Rural. Her current work looks at seeds and biodiversity in the age of global food insecurity.