Ag Guild hires new executive director

The Ag Guild shares some details about the organization’s new leader.

The San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild is excited to introduce its new Executive Director, Emma Rastatter.

The Ag Guild is growing, with new programs and new staff. Following the award of several USDA grants to support Ag Guild projects, former director Steph Coffey will move to the position of Finance Manager, to meet increased grant reporting requirements. “This is an excellent time to bring along our next generation of leaders, as we expand programming,” said Coffey.

Rastatter comes to the Ag Guild with a passion for health, studying Human Biology and pre-med at Stanford University, followed by a stint in health technology. She then pursued health “upstream” to its wellspring of agriculture and food systems, taking a job at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant and educational farm in the Hudson Valley of New York, helping chef Dan Barber launch initiatives to build a more resilient regional food economy. Rastatter left Blue Hill in 2020 to continue her education in small-scale ag by working on a regenerative farm in a different ecology each season for a year. She started at Aurora Farms on San Juan Island. Rastatter and her husband, Wiley, fell in love with the islands’ agricultural community and deep intergenerational wisdom. After time on farms in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New York, they moved full-time to Lopez Island.

“I’m honored to become the next Executive Director of the Ag Guild, working collaboratively to stoke a sovereign, equitable, and delicious food system in the San Juan Islands,” said Rastatter. She will join Ag Guild staff and community partners in projects to support local producers with access to resources, technical assistance, markets, farmland, and education.

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