Sarah Gower

Sarah serves as the Alliance’s Technical Specialist, supporting research efforts on the environmental benefits of climate-smart agriculture, including the use of COMET-Planner, COMET-Farm, and Fieldprint tools.  Sarah also provides technical training to our partners across the four participating states and serves as the point of contact for all USDA-NRCS Conservation Practices inquiries.

Sarah was born and raised in Orange County, VA on her parents’ small farm in Unionville.  The daughter of entrepreneurs, she grew up farming sheep, rabbits, landscaping plants, and cattle.  She followed in her parents’ footsteps, studying agriculture at Virginia Tech, and went on to obtain her BS (2009) and MS (2011) in Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences with emphasis on Plant Breeding and Genetics. These degrees led her to a career in crop improvement with Monsanto in Galena, Maryland and then Mount Olive, NC, where she worked to help test and advance new elite lines of corn, soybean, cotton, and wheat for Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern crop farmers.  From there she met her husband, Matt, and they share 3 beautiful children Little Sarah, Melanie Mae, and James.

In 2018 they moved to Unionville to raise their kids on her family’s farm.  Since returning to Virginia, Sarah worked part time for Bayer’s Climate Corp, and enjoys leading a 4H Cloverbud Club, as well as volunteering teaching the youth about crops, soils and agriculture in Orange County.