Amanda Henderson

Amanda joined American Farmland Trust in November of 2023. In this role, she provides technical assistance to landowners so that they can implement conservation practices on their farms. Amanda was born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit, and she studied Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. After four years working in engineering, she volunteered with the Peace Corps. Her project involved llama ranchers in the Bolivian Altiplano, igniting her passion for working on the land. It also brought into focus agriculture’s impact on the environment and inspired her to learn how to farm sustainably. When she returned home in 2008, she interned with Polyface Farm in Virginia. She continued working with Polyface for three more seasons, then spent the next decade working with small farms throughout the US.

Before joining AFT, she farmed at a 100% grass-fed dairy farm in New York for several seasons. Her work has focused on pasture-based poultry production and adaptive multi-paddock grazing for cattle, emphasizing livestock welfare and soil health. As Amanda became more aware of the challenges facing farmers and ranchers in America, it made her even more grateful for the time that producers took out of their busy schedules to teach her how to farm. She also noticed that many producers were struggling with data management and realized she could use her technical background to give back. She has worked with many farmers to improve their data protocols, from teaching them how to use spreadsheets and collaborative online tools to developing databases to manage datasets with higher levels of complexity and building maps to communicate geospatial data more clearly. Amanda recently moved to East Texas, where her parents are from and where she spent all her childhood summers. She spends her free time exploring the fields and forests of the Pineywoods ecoregion, growing food, and learning how to build healthy East Texas soils.