Episode 482: All about the 2020 Young Farmers & Cooks Conference and Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture

Jessica Galen (left) and Shannon Algiere (right) - two of the leaders at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture I'm really excited for this week's episode - and happy to introduce you to my two guests, Shannon Algiere co-founder of the farm at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and currently the Farm Liaison manager, and Jessica Galen, Stone Barn's Communications Manager. I've invited them to give us a snapshot of the history and work of Stone Barns Center and then we'll preview the upcoming Young Farmers & Cooks Conference, a three-day, all-virtual event produced and hosted by Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture and Blue Hill at Stone Barns Restaurant on December 8-10. That's coming right up next week and you'll want to take advantage of the extremely affordable pricing to register.  This is an important conference about sustainable farming and food systems, and yes, the subject of Floral and Fiber Agriculture has a role. Our fabulous Slow Flowers panel, clockwise from top left: Julius Tillery, Taij & VC Cotten, Julio Frietas and Aishah Lurry On Wednesday, December 9th (8:30 am Pacific/11:30 am Eastern), I'll be moderating a panel called  The Regional Flower Economy: Flower Farming as a Viable and Profitable Facet of Agriculture, featuring a fantastic lineup of Slow Flowers members. They include Aishah Lurry, Patagonia Flower Farm, Julio Freitas, The Flower Hat, Taij Cotton and VC (Victoria) Edwards-Cotten, Perry-winkle Farm, and Julius Tillery, Black Cotton U.S.Whether you’re a farmer, cook, butcher, miller, preservationist, processor, or anyone else in the food (and floral) chain, this conference is for you.  Here's a bit more about Jessica and Shannon ~ Jessica Galen is the communications director at Stone Barns Center. In this role she manages relationships with the media and partner organizations, and provides editorial support for programming for young farmers and other key audiences. She launched her career in branding and communications at a nonprofit consulting firm and an education reform organization. While in graduate school at NYU for a M.A. in Food Studies she worked in the cheese caves at Murray’s Cheese as well as for an organic produce farm and a raw farmstead cheesemaker. She served as the general manager at Lucy’s Whey, then the Upper East Side’s largest artisanal cheese shop, and as wholesale director at New York Shuk, a small-batch producer of Israeli and North African pantry items. Jessica published an article in the Graduate Journal of Food Studies based on her Master’s thesis entitled “Cheesemongers Over Fearmongers: Toward Data-Driven Cheese Recommendations for Pregnant Women” and was a contributor to the James Beard Award-winning “Oxford Companion to Cheese.” She is on the Advisory Board of Equity Advocates, which provides policy education, advocacy training, and coalition building services to improve healthy food access in urban communities. In addition to her Master’s degree, she has a B.A. From Harvard University in Yiddish and Latin American Studies. Shannon Algiere, a co-founder of the farm at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture brings over 20 years of experience in holistic farm design, crops production, garden and greenhouse management and farm-based education. Alongside her husband Jack Algiere, Shannon has served many roles at Stone Barns Center in its development. Most recently as Farm Liaison Manager, Shannon partnered with the center’s farm and programs staff to oversee farmer training, internships and volunteer programming. She attended University of Rhode Island, was an outdoor educator at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Greenhouse Manager at Meadowbrook Biodynamic Herb Farm and White Gate Farm, and a volunteer for the Costa Rican National Park Service. In 2017 Shannon started a floral design and horticultural services business, Potter & Prune, promoting sustainable models in the floral design indu...