Brandy has 10+ years of experience working in the agriculture field. She previously worked for the Syracuse Refugee Agricultural Program as their Agricultural Programs Director and even organized agricultural programs for rural women in Benin, West Africa where she was a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years. She is from southern Indiana where both sets of grandparents were farmers and owned farmland, so she spent many days helping out at the farms. Brandy also serves as a volunteer board member for the Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance (SOFSA) that promotes equity andinclusion within the Syracuse Food System. She attended Purdue University and graduated with a degree in Wildlife Biology from the School of Agriculture. She also enjoys gardening, raising chickens, and managing the Strathmore Buyers Club that helps bring local food to her neighborhood.

Brandy looks forward to meeting farmers and landowners to help them decide if they want to put their farmland in a conservation easement, forever preserving much needed farmland and protecting it from urban sprawl. Please don’t hesitate to contact Brandy with any questions at info@nyalt.org

Jessie studied Environmental Biology at SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, NY before stepping into a career in sustainable agriculture and food systems. She began her career in these fields by leading Agroforestry projects at the community level as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea, West Africa. Upon returning, Jessie worked on an organic vegetable farm in Western New York for one growing season before heading to Iowa to start a 1-year AmeriCorps service where she worked closely with the Global Greens incubator farming program at a local Refugee Services agency. She then returned to Syracuse as the Agriculture Program Coordinator at RISE (Refugee and Immigrant Self-Empowerment) to continue working to make farming opportunities more accessible for former refugees in our community. From there, Jessie participated in a 6-month apprenticeship program at Brady Farm. Simultaneously, she was working part-time with NYALT as the Social Media and Outreach Specialist where she developed a deeper appreciation for the large-scale environmental, agricultural, and cultural impacts of farmland conservation.

As the Project Manager, Jessie is excited to help increase NYALT’s capacity for protecting farmland by facilitating the completion of ongoing conservation projects and taking on the annual stewardship responsibilities of preexisting projects. She looks forward to working with landowners and building connections with the greater rural agriculture communities in Central New York and beyond.