Kathryn Pereira

Kathryn Pereira has nearly 30 years of experience working in food and agriculture and has a passion for improving farmers’ income and quality of life as well as consumers’ access to local foods. She began her career in Maputo, Mozambique where she worked with peri-urban communities to establish wood lots, fruit orchards, and urban agroforestry food production. When she returned to the United States, Kathryn owned and operated an organic vegetable farm in New Hampshire. Before starting at University of Illinois Extension in 2019, Kathryn worked for an international food retail and manufacturing trade association.

Kathryn received a Master’s in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she worked as a Research Scientist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and in UW’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering as a Researcher for the Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits Project and as National Program Evaluator for AgrAbility.

Kathryn regularly volunteers with USAID’s Farmer to Farmer Program in southern Africa and for local community and school garden projects. She provides workshops, technical assistance consultations, site visits and referrals to resources for urban and peri-urban food system projects, organizations, commercial farmers and residents interested in urban agriculture and local food systems. She is a member of the Midwest Consortium for Equity in Food (M-CERF) and serves on the Cook County Good Food Task Force. She has also completed the Food Finance Institute's consultant training program to give financial technical assistance to food beverage, and value-added agriculture businesses.