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Samantha Levy, American Farmland Trust’s Conservation and Climate Policy Manager, leads the development and implementation of the organization’s climate policy agenda. A passionate leader in protecting farmland and advancing smart solar siting, Levy leads AFT’s efforts to advance adoption of new regenerative practices on farmland, protect farmland from development and encourage smart renewable energy siting on farms. Levy also works closely with AFT’s Farmers Combat Climate Change Initiative, which adopts regenerative and soil health to promote agricultural systems.

From 2017-2021, Levy served as AFT’s New York Policy Manager where she researched, built coalitions around and advocated directly for public policies and programs at all levels of government that kept land in farming and farmers on the land, and helped farmers adopt sound farming practices in New York. She worked together with farm and environmental groups to incorporate farmers into the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, advocated for smarter solar siting on farmland, passed soil health legislation and supported additional funding programs that helped farmers mitigate climate change.

In 2020, Levy was appointed to serve as a member of the Agriculture and Forestry Advisory Panel to the Climate Action Council to develop recommendations to reduce agricultural GHG emissions and increase carbon sequestration in soils, and she also served as a member of the Governors’ Racial Equity and Diversity in Agriculture Workgroup. She was named one of City and State magazines’ 40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Albany and was listed in their Agriculture Power 50 in 2021. Prior to joining AFT, Levy was an intern at Slow Food USA and for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for whom she investigated federal policy angles to facilitate the intergenerational transition of farmland. She holds a Bachelors in Fine Arts from NYU Tisch, and Masters of Arts in Food Systems from New York University and graduated from year one of Cornell University’s LEAD NY program in 2020.