Iriel Edwards

Farm & Project Manager, Jubilee Justice

Iriel Edwards is the farm and project manager for Jubilee Justice, a non-profit organization in Alexandria, LA that works with Black farming communities throughout the Southeast growing organic & heritage crops, building cooperative ownership models, and providing financial support through reparative capital. Iriel manages Jubilee Justice’s experimental farm where the project tests different varieties of grains and regenerative management techniques under the System of Crop Intensification, SCI, while providing technical assistance to Black farmers across the Southeast interested in regenerative agriculture practices. She also serves as the Secretary for the board of Potlikker Capital, a charitable, integrated capital fund created to holistically serve BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) farmers in America who operate at the intersection of racial and climate justice.

Iriel graduated from Cornell University in 2020 with a BSc in Entomology and a BSc in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. While in school she received a research distinction for her multi-year study on the link between food sovereignty and food security amongst hunters and fishers in rural Upstate New York. She has also worked closely with Dr. Erika Styger and Dr. Karim Aly-Kassam of Cornell University studying crop diversity and food systems’ resilience amongst indigenous communities in both Suriname and the Pamir Mountains.