Speakers

Cheryl Rogowski is an entrepreneur and farmer in Pine Island, New York, who has reinvented the role of family farming as an engine of community development. She diversified her family’s farm to provide a variety of crops and vegetables to serve the needs of regional and specialty markets, introduced Community Supported Agriculture programs, including special programs for senior citizens, soup kitchens, and low-income families, and began a catering business known as Black Dirt Gourmet using products from regional producers. Her farm is also involved in art projects in support of local foods and literacy programs for migrant farm workers. Widely recognized for her land stewardship and for farming practices that protect the environment, in 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.