FARMINGTON — UMaine Cooperative Extension in Franklin County welcomes Bella Russo to their team. Russo joined the team Feb. 13 and is ready to make waves as the new community education assistant for EFNEP [Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program].
Russo, who recently came to Maine, found the position through word of mouth with Nick Rowley, sustainable agriculture & horticulture professional at Cooperative Extension.
Originally from western Massachusetts, Russo came to Maine to expand her agricultural pursuits as she felt the smaller community made for more meaningful connections.
“There’s a lot more opportunity here in Maine to do small scale agriculture,” she said in an interview. “It’s much easier to connect with the community here too, because communities are small enough to where you feel like you’ve actually got the opportunity to interact with people instead of just kind of being lost.”
A graduate of University of Massachusetts Amherst, Russo developed a background in agriculture, plant science and biology as well as plant pathology. After graduating, she worked with the cooperative extension program at UMass.
“I worked in the nematology lab for a while, which I was doing some long term projects and we worked with all sorts of people,” she explained. Russo’s work led her to working with golf course managers, farmers, growers, and lumber yard managers.
Within UMass Russo also worked in fungal genomics lab, where she picked up sequencing and sequencing programs. “It wasn’t a place that I thought I had an interest in initially, but I found that there were pockets of that job that I was kind of attracted to,” she said.
Following her time at UMass, Russo worked at BioSafe Systems in Connecticut. While there Russo worked closely with municipal workers who oversaw wastewater treatment plants or large bodies of water like lakes or ponds. Large scale farmers and controlled environmental farmers, like commercial cannabis and hydroponic vegetables growers, also worked closely with Russo at Biosafe Systems.
Having moved to Maine in August of last year, Russo believes she is settling in well and enjoys the different pace that Maine offers. “I actually really like it here. I like the pace,” she said.
As she continues to settle into her new position, Russo will begin her role of assisting the community in programs that will educate individuals across all ages on food and nutrition as it relates to agriculture.
“I think this job will give me a really unique opportunity to [be an educator],” she stated, “but in the same breath to also be much more rooted and connected in a community in a way that maybe a traditional teaching position wouldn’t necessarily be able to offer and provide.”
She continued, “The job does center around things that I’m pretty passionate about, like community health, food justice and food access, which for me all reasonably fall under the category of agriculture, which is my passion and something that really, really excites and engages me.”
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