Meet the Speakers

Leigh Merinoff

Owner, Meadows Bee Farm

Leigh Merinoff has degrees from the University of Michigan and Hunter College in the arts. Trained as a sculptor, Leigh has always been focused on creating and building things. Turning from art to farming, today Leigh is the owner and operator of Meadows Bee Farm, an experimental farm and raw milk dairy in the mountains of Southern Vermont. She’s used biodynamic practices for almost two decades to heal the land and is now teaching others in workshops how to make and apply the preparations. She runs a children’s educational program awarding children badges as they learn farming and science fundamentals covering 30 subjects ranging from basic livestock skills and cooking to agroecology and herbal medicine. She has a homeschool, summer camp and public school program. Her sister farm, The Field House, is an adult education and arts hub with an agrarian library, blacksmith and ceramics shop, teaching kitchen and an herbal medicinal lab. Over the past few decades, Leigh has brought several dozen WWOOF-ers, interns, and friends onto the farm that have then settled in the mountain community, increasing commerce and creating the next generation of farmers.

While living in the mountains of rural Vermont, Leigh was instrumental in acquiring and redeveloping the last remaining commercial building in her community. Now a non-profit center dedicated to food security, arts and culture it includes an outdoor pizza oven, music venue, thrift store, café, post office, farmers market & commercial kitchen. Friday night farmers’ market gatherings have become the thread that ties the community together. Today the center is a place where people gather to purchase food and clothing, eat a meal and visit their friends.

A long-time member of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Leigh sits on their advisory board and runs the West River Chapter in Southern Vermont. Active in Heifer International, Leigh has brought many people on study trips throughout the world to learn for themselves how indigenous people farm and grow food through restorative agricultural methods, as well as to create a community and help neighbors do the same with Heifer’s Pass On A Gift program.
Leigh sits on the board of Children’s Health Defense.