Sep 9, 2021
Briana Zagami at Harbor Farmz
Editor’s Note: Get to know the amazing team at Agritecture! This interview features Briana Zagami, Marketing & Sustainability Lead at Agritecture Consulting.
Pathway To Agritecture
Working out of New York City, Briana has been part of Agritecture’s family since November 2018. With the firm belief that “the key to building sustainable cities is local, resilient food systems,” Briana has always been interested in the relationship between food and the environment.
Prior to joining Agritecture, Briana gained a background education in sustainable development and professional experience in digital marketing and client services.
Through her undergraduate degree at Dickinson College, she performed research on sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as on the adverse effects of climate change on vulnerable populations, and the relationship between ‘Gender and Climate change.’ Briana was also able to gain a deeper understanding of sustainable farming through “attending school on a sustainable farm in Costa Rica, where I learned a lot about sustainable agriculture practices, natural resource management, environmental economics, and more.”
After this, she began her “career in marketing working with digital publishers and in the tech industry.” With a desire to refocus this passion for food and sustainability, and continue to address the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations, Briana connected with Agritecture.
Building Agritecture’s Global Audience
Briana first joined as Agritecture’s Media Strategist, where she focused most of her time on developing Agritecture’s audience base through strategizing and managing website and social media. She “quickly began to ramp up our digital presence,” and, soon after, “began working on client projects and also on our events, namely The 2019 AgLanta Conference and AgritectureXchange Toronto.”
In realizing how much of our audience relies on Agritecture for updates and trends in controlled environment agriculture and climate-smart agriculture, Briana has learned how crucial her role is in sharing “truthful information from a global perspective.”
“It is important for us to always be innovative and continue to produce content that educates and informs our audience.” Briana strongly believes that digital marketing efforts need to “continue to shift to cater to audience demands and interests.” And, as a result, her role at Agritecture has also constantly been evolving.
Marketing & Sustainability Lead
Today, Briana also manages Agritecture’s Sustainability & CSR commitments, ensuring that these activities are reflected within both the marketing and communications, as well as the consulting projects that the team takes on.
To support her in this new undertaking, Briana also returned to school to pursue her MS in Environmental Policy & Sustainability Management from The New School.
What excites Briana most about CEA is “the opportunity to grow healthier and fresher foods in dense urban areas that do not have access to healthy food products.” She shares that “as city residents, and even suburban residents, we’ve lost the connection we had to our food that was once grown on farmland prior to the rapid urbanization during the industrial revolution. Yes, hard to believe that Manhattan was once farmland. This lost connection has also affected our education on what healthy food is.”
In light of this, Briana believes that “it’s time to teach people about where our food comes from! The technology used in CEA is an exciting approach to get the younger generation of city-dwellers involved in agriculture and to help educate the next generations on the importance of food, health, and the environment.”
Actualizing Agritecture’s Sustainability Commitments
To date, Briana’s favorite project is the GoldenEye Luxury Resort’s Sustainability Assessment in Jamaica. While sustainability has always been part of GoldenEye’s philosophy, the client sought out consulting services from Agritecture in order to integrate sustainability into the core of their operations.
Briana shares that “GoldenEye was a really rewarding project to work on. It brought together my interest in agriculture, travel, and community engagement. We helped them put together a sustainability plan based on 6 impact categories including energy, water, waste, food, and leadership. We worked alongside their staff and provided recommendations on how they can take steps to become a more sustainable resort.”
What was truly great about this project is that “the client truly understood the need to improve their processes not only for their staff, but also for their guests and their local community. After Covid-19, the travel and hospitality industry has had to make huge adjustments. GoldenEye recognized this step of assessing sustainability was imperative to ensure the right path forward.”
What Hopes Does Briana Have For The Future Of CEA?
Briana highlights how “the industry is quickly improving and becoming more “mainstream” so there is hope that we can continue to see great progress in the next 5 years.” She specifies that she’d love to see:
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More variety in the crops that are grown indoors
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Local governments putting urban agriculture on the agenda and supporting the growth of urban farms in areas considered food deserts
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More CEA farms sourcing to big retailers
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Conventional Ag farmers and CEA farmers working together to share information and solve the bigger problems that agriculture is facing amidst climate change
As the new Marketing & Sustainability Lead, Briana hopes to keep connecting with like-minded sustainability enthusiasts and changemakers that can help drive sustainable food production and out-of-the-box strategizing.
