Lex Helbling (she/her) is a Farm Research Field Assistant, where she spends most of her days in the field. Lex has lived and farmed in Jefferson County, Washington, for the last 18 years, after moving west from her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at 18.
Lex’s path in agriculture began with eight seasons at Dharma Ridge Farm, where she learned the full scope of organic vegetable production. She went on to run her own livestock farm for six years and now stewards a small, collectively run free food farm project rooted in community care. As a returning generational farmer with roots in southern Italy, where her relatives still farm today, Lex brings a strong sense of ancestral connection and passion to her work. She tends to culturally significant seeds that have been with her family for many generations. She is dedicated to a place-based food system and sees seed work as essential to ecological and cultural resilience.
