Dina Brewster founded The Hickories in Ridgefield as a one acre vegetable garden and has overseen the development of new products and new acreage as the farm business has grown, including the farmer-led Northeast Seed Collective, making ecotypic restoration seed locally available in ecoregions 59 | 58 & 84. Committed to connecting people with working land, the Brewsters have stewarded The Hickories since 1936. She is the former Executive Director of CT NOFA. In an effort to strengthen the resilience of her family farm, she co-founded the Ecotype Project, a program at a non-profit partner Northeast Farming Association of Connecticut (CT NOFA). The Ecotype Project consulted and oversaw the initial development of protocols at Dina’s farm and soon many others – and the efforts of this program resulted in more farmers growing restoration seed throughout the region. Farmers growing this ecotypic seed then share the work of labeling and distributing that seed – work that is done by the Northeast Seed Collective, a business Dina now runs out of her farm.