Seed huntress and ethnobotanist, Sefra Alexandra and Executive Director of CT NOFA and Owner of The Hickories Farm, Dina Brewster, join Jean Stetz-Puchalski EGC President and founder of our Easton Pollinator Pathway to discuss the importance of cultivating native plants. We will learn about our native ecotype plants, where they fit into our landscape, and how to harvest seed and prepare for next year’s planting.
SPEAKER BIOS:
Dina Brewster
Dina is the Executive Director of CT NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) and owner of The Hickories Farm. Dina has been a full-time farmer for 15 years, after teaching, first in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer and then in the Bronx as a high school English teacher. She founded The Hickories as a one-acre vegetable garden and has overseen the development of new products and new acreage as the farm business has grown to a 45 acre certified organic fruit, vegetable, cut flower, and livestock business. Committed to connecting people with working land, Dina chose to return to her family’s farm in Ridgefield and start the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program, one that still exists as the backbone of the farm’s business plan. Dina believes we have a responsibility to increase the economic vitality of our regional agrarian economy, improve the long-range ecological stewardship of our land and water, and enliven our cultural commitment to farming.
Sefra Alexandra:
Sefra Alexandra "The Seed Huntress," is an endurance race ethnobotanist on a perennial expedition to save the seeds of our wild + cultivated lands. She has fortified community seed banks internationally on island nations after natural disasters, conducted fieldwork in the South Pacific as a Genebank Impacts Fellow for the Crop Trust, hunted for rare endangered seeds for Seeds of Success in Idaho, revived the local allium heirloom The Southport Globe Onion by starting a seed library + is now the lead of CT NOFA's pollinator health initiative The Ecotype Project. Sefra has been spearheading CT NOFA's Pollinator Health Initiative - The Ecotype Project, which is working to amplify the amount of truly local native CT pollinator seed that is available in an effort to supply nurseries, homeowners and farmers with the plants they need to help restore our native habitat, support our local pollinators and ensure local food security
Sefra joins us today after her return from the inaugural BOATanical Expedition- an 87 mile canoe journey down the Quinnitukqut (Connecticut) River- planting 500 native plants in pollinator gardens as she "paddled for the pollinators!" Sefra Alexandra is a WINGS WorldQuestFlag Carrier, member of the Explorers Club + holds her M.A.T. in Agroecology from Cornell University.