Lexy Close 

Program Director, Appalachian RC&D Council

Preserving Tennessee Farmland: Strategies for Land Access and Transfer, Saturday, December 7th, 3:15 PM, Room 303

Lexy is a native of Northeast Tennessee with a Master of International Development and Social Change from Clark University. After college, she spent 13 months working on organic farms in Europe and the US and fell in love with small-scale sustainable agriculture.  In 2012, she co-founded the community organization “Build It Up East Tennessee” which teaches families how to garden and has helped hundreds of low-income families grow over 120,000 lbs of fresh produce. In 2015, she got a job with the Appalachian RC&D Council working as the Local Food Promotion Coordinator, and grew to be a regional expert on local food markets and products. Nowadays, she focuses on grant writing and is the Program Director for ARCD’s work with the Appalachian Producers Cooperative, which is building a new USDA-inspected meat processing facility in Washington County, TN. So far, she has written successful grants totaling $11 million to support local agriculture projects.