Women in Ag discussion panel
Deborah Byrd is the Executive Director of Jonesborough Locally Grown, the non-profit operating Boone Street Market and Jonesborough Farmers Market. She is dedicated to strengthening connections between local farmers, food, and community. Deborah brings a diverse background in sustainable agriculture, having worked as a grower at Serenity Knoll Farm and with Farms Work Wonders at Wardensville Garden Market.
Chelsea Green, MA, LPC, is a masters level therapist who offers nature-based therapy and equine therapy services at Fauna Forest Farm in Jonesborough, TN. Chelsea provides holistic and trauma-informed care to support adults and couples while caring for horses and the land in regenerative ways. She also hosts the monthly Climate Café of East Tennessee and facilitates family constellation group work that integrates horses into these healing practices on the farm. You can learn more about her work at www.anubeginningtherapy.com
Margie Kendall is a local food and farming advocate that lives with her family in the Tree Streets. She serves on the board of directors for Appalachian Resource Conservation and Development Council, but previously worked with Jonesborough Locally Grown, launched Serenity Knoll Cooking School in 2016, and runs her own food blog.
Sarah Long is a sustainable farmer, writer, chef, and environmental justice scholar who teaches environmental communications as a professor at Appalachian State University. Her memoir “Blood, Bone, Breath, Earth,” chronicling her life as a rabbit farmer during COVID while discovering her biological Appalachian roots, is forthcoming from Regal House Books in May 2026. Sarah lives on a 13-acre homestead Spade and Spoon Farm in Johnson City with her husband and therapy donkeys, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. She operates a seasonal supper club featuring her root-to-frond approach to sustainable agriculture and local foodways, alongside a CSA program offering organically grown vegetables with optional egg, mushroom, and microgreen add-ons.
Iliana Pate is a grower, maker, sheep shearer, and forest school instructor, currently located at The Earth School at Fauna Forest Farm in Jonesborough. Iliana was born and raised on a small family farm on the Cumberland plateau, where she developed a deep appreciation for good food, and a passion for sustainable, equitable, agriculture. A desire to learn more about sustainable agriculture and land management models has taken Iliana from Tennessee veggie farms, to a Wisconsin dairy, to a NPS prescribed fire crew, and back to Tennessee to teach nature studies and gardening at Fauna Forest Farm.
Rachel Slaughter is co-owner and farmer at Rain Crow Farm in Jonesborough, TN growing a wide variety of vegetables for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), restaurants and farmers markets. Before moving to Jonesborough Rain Crow Farm produced on a quarter acre urban farm in Johnson City. Before starting Rain Crow Farm Rachel worked on a variety of vegetable and cut flower farms in Tennessee as well as in agriculture education.
