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Executive Director

Farm Management

Logistics

Wholesale

Farm to Institution

Member Service & Communications

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Graphic & Information Design

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Land Access Manager

Farm Incubation Development & Farm Crew

Food Justice Distributions

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Project Coordinator

Bookkeeper

Drive Team

Pack Team

Pack & Drive

Pack Team

Farm Crew

Dr. Carlena Ficano is a professor of economics at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, USA where she teaches courses in labor economics, public policy and applied econometrics. Her current research interests include the application of network mapping to local food systems and food system optimization at the state level. Carlena was a founding organizer of the Hartwick College Center for Craft Food and Beverage and is now a collaborator on the initiation of the Hartwick College Grain Innovation Center, both of which are university sponsored ventures promoting regional agricultural economic development. Beyond the university, Carlena serves on the Executive Board of the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE) and is a member of the CADE Vision2050 research team.

Amanda Wong began working with Star Route Farm in Delaware county in 2017 and joined as a co-owner in 2021. She loves being dedicated to the cultivation of land - watching plants grow slowly, eating a radish plucked from the ground, digging her hands into soil, being dirty, cooking farm meals, and access to fresh nutrient dense produce. She seeks to continually learn with farmers, and experiment with growing techniques and varieties.

As a product of the Chinese diaspora, she feels it is crucial to make the organic farming world more accessible to communities of color through mutual aid work. She deeply envisions the farm, its knowledge, privileges and crop distribution to be in solidarity with the movement to create a more just, connected, non-extractive food system for the farmers, consumers, cooks, community organizers, and the environment. She imagines a worldview in which Earth is not just an extractable resource, food is not a commodity, and partnership replaces exploitation.

She sees working with Catskills Agrarian Alliance as an opportunity to intimately connect with a community of farmers who are critically and actively building a BIPOC led food system against our industrialized, segregated, dominator model of society.

Yuka C. Honda is a Japanese composer/musician and producer residing in New York City. She is best known for the band Cibo Matto, which she co-founded with Miho Hatori in 1994 and in which Honda created a unique one-man band sound by triggering samples “live.” She has always been supportive of hyper-local food systems.

Dr. Jamie Skye Bianco (she/they) is Associate Clinical Professor of Environmental & Digital Media in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, and the founding Director of the MCC MediaLab, a practice-based, social justice and media project learning lab. Jamie is also the principal of RambleBramble Farm, a diversified vegetable and livestock farm, raising chickens (meat/eggs), sheep (fleece/lamb/mutton), dairy goats (cheese/milk) and rescue horses (soul). The original RBF, once located in Delaware County, NY, joined the 607 CSA in its second year and grew with what has now become the Catskills Agrarian Alliance. This past year, RBF moved to a much bigger agriculturally-conserved farm in northern Vermont to scale up rotational and regenerative pasture-based farming practices. Jamie’s background and continued investments include: 30 years as an Indy/independent media and extensive documentary media production and as a practice-based educator working in social justice issues; business planning for farmers (CADE); organizing and activism around social justice issues including food pantries, justice, sovereignty, and on-farm slaughter; diversity, equity and belonging in education and farming; queer and trans equity and safety; and police and state violence. It is an honor and a pleasure to serve CAA, to help build this model for cooperative small farming, just food networks, and sovereignty and holistic sustainability in food and farming practices.

Bari is a young farmer, small business owner, community organizer, advocate, educator and lifetime student. At SUNY Geneseo, Bari studied Philosophy and Environmental Studies with a focus on agricultural ethics. There, she co-founded the Student Coalition for Migrant Workers and participated in grassroots organizing for farmworker rights.

Learning from mentors, Bari developed a deep passion for and knowledge of organics and permaculture at Heartstone Organic Farm (Dansville, NY), A Way of Life Farm (Bostic, NC) and Frost Valley YMCA Farm (Claryville, NY). Through the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture's (MESA) Applied Agroecology course, Bari learned about traditional, indigenous and peasant farming systems. She also developed a knowledge of local food procurement and preparation by working part-time as a prep cook at the Neversink General Store (Claryville, NY) and on the Early Bird Cookery (Callicoon, NY) catering team.

Bari is a member of National Young Farmers Coalition and is the Women's Affinity Representative of the organization's Federal Policy Committee. Additionally, Bari is the Farmer Representative on Northeast SARE's Executive Committee and has served on New England Grassroots Environmental Fund's Grantmaking Committee. Bari is also on the Board of Directors of Unadilla Community Farm and previously of the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute.

Currently, Bari works with Providence Farm Collective and Cornell Cooperative Extension/TasteNY while her ecological, human scale farm, Healing Poem Farm, grows with the support of her partner, Sean, family and friends.

Jessica Fujan brings more than 10 years of experience as an organizer and a lobbyist for environmental justice and food sovereignty. Her work began with Brigadas de Paz, advocating for indigenous communities demanding agrarian reform in Guatemala, and program evaluation of the UN World Food Program's projects in Makwanpur, Nepal. Jessica has organized for Affordable Housing in Chicago as the Senior Organizer at Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. and for equitable policy for farmers and rural people at Food & Water Watch, in her role as Midwest Region Director. She is currently the Legislative Advocate for the largest and fastest growing Nurses Union in the country, where her coalition leadership has won a transfer of more than $50 million dollars from the carceral system to public health programming. A consultant for Solar Energy Industries association and the Sierra Club, Jessica brings strategic analysis and passion for the win to every team she joins. She regularly mentor's young professionals in environmental justice, labor, and organizing capacities. She is a Spiritual Ecology Fellow with the Kalliopeia Foundation, an experienced fundraiser, and obsessed cyclist. She would love it if you called her.

Eleanor Blakeslee-Drain and Patrick Hennebery operate Berry Brook Farm, certified organic by NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC. We strive to improve our soils through responsible organic practices and to grow produce of the highest quality for our customers.

We are motivated to grow more food each year so that we are well positioned to feed our community as climate-based and other disturbances develop. We also firmly believe in paying our crew a living wage to provide a sustainable livelihood in agriculture. We're proud to farm in the Catskills and to be part of the bright future of sustainable agriculture in New York State.

We hope that one day our children will carry on with our toil and love; to continue in our labors of bringing something valuable to this world.

Lucky Dog Farm has been in operation since 2000. The long road from then to now has been filled with the nitty gritty, the delightful, and, the unexpected; all of the things that make life worth living.

Through trial and error, hard work and dedication, patience and learning, our families have worked together to grow food that we are proud of.

Chicory Creek Farm is a small family farm located in Mount Vision, New York halfway between Cooperstown and Oneonta. We grow a wide variety of Certified Organic produce as well as pasture-raised pigs and poultry.

Stony Creek Farmstead is owned and worked by three generations of the Marsiglio family. In 2005 Kate and Dan started growing meat, eggs, and vegetables for sale. We adhere to rigorous free-range, beyond organic, pasturing practices for all of our animals. Our cows and sheep are 100% grass fed. Pigs and poultry supplement their pasture diets with locally grown certified organic grains. Please join our mailing list to learn more.

Our cows are our family and family is at the heart of everything we do on our over 200 year old Danforth Jersey Farm that's been in our family for 7 generations. Of course all our cows have names. We milk a small herd of 40 Jerseys and they are the stars in our milky way. They graze 70 acres of our Catskills pastures and we turn their milk into our Cowbella products at our farmstead creamery.

Nestled in the peaceful quiet of the Western Catskills, La Basse Cour is a small family farm practicing natural methods in harmony with nature. For over 150 years, traditional farming techniques have resulted in rich soils growing nutritious vegetables, berries and herbs and nurturing healthy pastures for our farm animals, and meadows, woodland and wetland habitat for wildlife.

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