Welcoming New Staff to the Small Farms Team

The Cornell Small Farms Program is excited to announce the expansion of our team with three new additions!

In our growing efforts to serve the Spanish-speaking farmer community, we have Mildred Alvarado and Hannah Rae Warren joining our LatinX farmer project. Mildred grew up on a small subsistence farm in western Honduras and has followed her interest in farming through two master’s degrees and a PhD. She most recently worked on promoting a sustainable agricultural sector throughout the supply chain in Central America and the U.S. As the LatinX Farmer Training Coordinator, Mildred will be focused on building bridges to facilitate knowledge and help farmers to overcome linguistic, cultural, and technical barriers to promote inclusive and profitable businesses. 

Hannah Rae will be working jointly with our program and the New York State Integrated Pest Management (NYSIPM) in a newly-created Bilingual Project Specialist position. After pursuing an undergraduate degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell, Hannah Rae followed her passion for local food around the world. She eventually moved to Costa Rica and completed a master’s degree furthering her work in sustainable agriculture. In her new position, Hannah Rae will work on building relationships throughout our local and regional food system, and supporting pathways for Spanish speakers to pursue farming and adopt IPM practices.

We’ve also welcomed Peggy Stevens to our team, as our Course Administrator. Peggy first moved to Ithaca in 2005 and began her career at Cornell University in the Hospital for Animals. After a few other brief stops at Cornell, she landed in Biological & Environmental Engineering in 2009 providing support to several faculty members, their graduate students, post-docs and students. In this gig appointment with our program, Peggy will help support our online course students and instructors.

Please join us in welcoming Hannah Rae, Mildred and Peggy!