Holly Stein

Holly Stein (she/her) is the Senior Training and Education Manager for the Farms for a New Generation Team. She works to create training programs that address the need to transition a more diverse generation of farmers and ranchers onto farmland. Holly comes to the work with an array of farm and education experience. She worked at the Groundswell Center for Local Food and Farming in Ithaca, NY. She co-managed, developed, and worked with a multicultural advisory committee of farmers and community members to design a Farmer Training Program with a USDA Beginner Farmer Rancher Development Program grant. She understands the challenges and opportunities that exist in training aspiring adult farmers from diverse backgrounds to access land, markets and capital.

Holly became interested in farming while living in New York City, working as a Youth Development Coordinator at Project Morry. In 2011, she moved onto a small family farm in Southern Massachusetts, where her love of growing food flourished, and her journey in the food system began. After receiving a certificate in Ecological Horticulture at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) in Santa Cruz, CA, she worked at Freedom Food Farm in Johnston, RI, as a farm worker, learning the ins and outs of an organic vegetable farm. Shifting back into an educator role at Fresh Start Farm in Lisbon, ME, she taught land management practices and had the privilege of continuing to learn from farmers who were elders and refugees from Somalia, Sudan, and Mexico. Holly spent many years building art for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers spring action in South Florida for farmworker rights and justice in the agricultural fields.