Food for Thought with Mary Berry, Executive Director of the Berry Center

Join us for our January installment of Food for Thought featuring guest speaker Mary Berry, Berry Center Executive Director. Mary was born to Wendell and Tanya Berry and grew up at Lanes Landing Farm in Henry County, Kentucky, from the time she was six years old. She farmed for a living in Henry County starting out in dairy farming, growing Burley tobacco, and later diversifying to organic vegetables, pastured poultry, and grass-fed beef. Mary is married to Trimble County farmer Steve Smith, who started the first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in the state of Kentucky. She speaks all over the country, putting her father’s writing to work advocating for farmers, small farms, rural areas, and land-conserving communities. She started The Berry Center in 2011, focusing on issues confronting small farming families in Kentucky and around the country. We are asking and trying to answer two of the most essential questions of our time: “What will it take for farmers to be able to afford to farm well?” and “How do we become a culture that will support good land use?”