Speakers
2021 Conference Speakers
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin
Reginaldo is the principal architect of an innovative poultry-centered regenerative agriculture model that is at the heart of the Main Street Project, where he is Chief Strategy Officer. His focus is on the development of multi-level strategies for building regenerative food and agriculture systems that deliver social, economic and ecological benefits. He leads Main Street’s engineering and design work and currently oversees the implementation of restorative blueprints for communities in the US, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
As co-founder of the newly-established Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, Reginaldo’s approach to regenerative agriculture involves a biodiverse system of symbiotically connected livestock and perennials, a model whose goals include the regeneration of farmland, the rebuilding of local food systems and creating opportunities for young and immigrant farmers. A native of Guatemala, Reginaldo began working on economic development projects with indigenous Guatemalan communities in 1988, and was a founding member of the Fair Trade Federation in 1994. Last year, he was awarded one of the prestigious lifetime Ashoka Fellowships for his groundbreaking work in the field of regenerative food and agriculture engineering.
Reginaldo is the author of the bestselling book In The Shadow of Green Man: My Journey from Poverty and Hunger to Food Security and Hope, available at https://mainstreetproject.org/in-the-shadow-of-green-man/
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Walter Jehne
Walter Jehne is an internationally recognized climate scientist, soil microbiologist and innovation strategist. He has immense field and research experience in forests, grasslands, agriculture and soils around the world. In addition to his career in science, Walter has worked broadly with the Federal government, leading transformation in industry.
This diversity of experience has given Walter a unique and exceptional capacity to devise solutions to problems and to turn challenges into opportunities. He is passionate about educating farmers, policymakers and others about “the soil carbon sponge” and its crucial role in reversing and mitigating flooding, drought, wildfires, and searing global temperatures. He shows us how we can safely cool the climate and restore essential biodiversity by repairing our disrupted hydrological cycles. We thus return excess carbon to the soils, where it can build a sponge that soaks up water and revives the biosphere!
Recently he participated in an invitation-only UN Food and Agriculture Organization conference in Paris aimed at bringing soil health into the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. As a research scientist at CSIRO, Walter investigated the potential of mycorrhizal fungi to recolonize toxic, degraded soils and to rebuild productive biosystems. His curiosity took him to China to study why the country’s traditional agriculture was so productive. Later he worked with his federal government on changing the paradigm of land management to foster strategic innovation. He now focuses on practically applying science and grassroots empowerment, traveling widely to share his understanding of the causes and solutions to climate change.
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Nicole Masters
Recognized as a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker on the topic of soil health, Nicole has a formal background in ecology, soil science and organizational learning, and has been providing agricultural coaching and extension services since 2003.
Her team of soil coaches at Integrity Soils work alongside producers in the U.S., Canada and across Australasia, supporting producers who work with over 1.2 million acres to take their operations to the next level in nutrient density, profitability and environmental outcomes.
She is one of a growing number of people who are facilitating the rapidly expanding world of quality food production and biological economies.
Her book, For the Love of Soil, showcases examples of the tools and principles producers are using to regenerate their soils, describing a step-by-step triage of actions to regenerate the land.
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John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, a plant nutrition and biostimulants consulting company. A top expert in the field of biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who are growing that supply. John is the host of the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, where he interviews top scientists and growers about the science and principles of implementing regenerative agriculture on a large scale.
Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology. He has a unique ability to simplify and clearly explain very complex concepts in the areas of soil and plant health. He skillfully discusses the larger social and environmental impacts of food, agriculture, and ecology. John’s mission is to provide support to the world’s farmers and globally impact our food supply.
As a farmer who grew up in and remains a part of the Amish community, John has a very special understanding of plants’ functional immunity. He sought out alternative approaches to prevent damage to his crops once they stopped responding to conventional pesticide treatments. With results proven on his own farm, John went on to found AEA to share his success and insight that healthy crops do not require chemical treatments or genetic modifications.
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Kathleen DiChiara
Nutritional Intelligence Academy
Functional Nutrition practitioner, educator, author
Kathleen DiChiara, FDN-P, INHC, BNI-P
Kathleen DiChiara is a Functional Nutritional Practitioner and the CEO of Rhode to Health, Inc. She is a BioIndividual Nutrition Practitioner and Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach with specialized training in nutrition for autism, allergies, autoimmunity, and chronic illnesses.
As the Founder and curriculum creator for Nutritional Intelligence Academy, she carries out her mission to teach others how to focus on food quality and the guiding principles of Mother Nature to restore health and end the pattern of chronic disease.
Kathleen is a best-selling author of two books, including, End Chronic Disease: The Healing Power of Beliefs, Behaviors, and Bacteria (Hay House, Inc | Penguin Random House 2020). She is also the main feature in the award-winning documentary film about the health risks of genetically modified foods and glyphosate, called Secret Ingredients.
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Kiran Krishnan
Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 20 years. He comes from a strict research background having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa. He left University research to take several leadership positions in global companies in Business Development and Product Development.
Most recently, Kiran is a Co-Founder and the Chief Scientific Officer at Microbiome Labs, a leader in microbiome and probiotic research. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences. He is an expert guest on National Radio and Satellite radio and has been a guest speaker on several Health Summits as a microbiome expert. He is currently involved in over 18 novel human clinical trials on probiotics and the human microbiome. Kiran is also on the Scientific Advisory Board for seven other companies in the industry. Kiran has published clinical trials in peer-reviewed, scientific journals and several global patents in his name.
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Sandor Katz
Fermentation revivalist, educator, author
Sandor Katz
Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. His books Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” Sandor is the recipient of a James Beard award and other honors. For more information, check out his website www.wildfermentation.com
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Rick Haney
Rick Haney is a renowned soil chemist, microbiologist and research farmer at USDA at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the creator of the Haney Soil Health Test, an innovative extraction procedure to assess overall soil health and plant mineral availability.
Rick grew up farming in Custer County, OK before he earned his PhD in soil microbial ecology and chemistry from Texas A&M University. Rick has researched soil ecology and soil testing for more than 20 years, including soil microbial activity, soil testing methodologies, and cropping systems for organic and conventional farming. This research includes the development of soil test methods for evaluation of short-term soil microbial activity as a tool for assessing the nutritive potential of various land management systems and the characterization of the role of various soil organic carbon and nitrogen fractions in nutrient cycling and biophysical alteration of soil as well as a new soil extractant that mimics a growing plant root.
Rick was awarded the USDA’s 2017 Plains Area and 2017 National Technology Transfer Awards. Rick was also awarded the 2018 USDA REE Under Secretary’s award for the Haney Test and the 2018 Secretary of Agriculture Honor Award for for the USDA’s strategic goal of strengthening the stewardship of private lands through technology and research.
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Steve Diver
University of Kentucky Horticulture Research Farm
Horticulture specialist, soils consultant
Steve Diver
Steve Diver has worked in alternative farming systems as a grower and researcher for over 30 years. He is the author of “Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation”, “Alternative Soil Testing Laboratories”, Nature Farming & Effective Microorganisms”, “Controlled Microbial Composting and Humus Management”, and other publications. He conducted the first biodynamic consultancies for USAID, in Russia and India, and served on the NOSB Compost Tea Task Force. Steve has worked as an Extension Horticulturist, soils consultant, and farm manager since 1984 – including 18 years as an agriculture specialist with ATTRA, the flagship sustainable agriculture program managed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT). He is currently the Farm Superintendent at University of Kentucky’s Horticulture Research Farm.
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Cathryn Couch
Ceres Community Project
Founder/executive director of Ceres, sustainability & food as medicine activist
Cathryn Couch
Cathryn Couch is the founder and CEO for Ceres Community Project, an innovative non-profit organization working to foster health by connecting people to one another and to a healthier food system. Ceres provides 150,000 organic, medically tailored meals annually to low-income people struggling because of a health challenge. Youth volunteers grow food and prepare the meals as part of a youth development and culinary education program. Ceres has trained a dozen communities across the United States and in Denmark to replicate their model. Couch chairs the California Food is Medicine Coalition, a six agency collaboration conducting the first statewide medically tailored meal pilot for Medicaid members. Ceres is also one of four agencies currently conducting large-scale randomized control trials for medically tailored meals at Kaiser Permanente.
Cathryn is an advisor to the Aspen Institute’s Food & Society initiative; contributed to the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2020 Reset the Table report; helps lead Hearts of Sonoma County – a collaborative working to reduce heart attacks and strokes; and participates in Marin Food Policy Council, California Food & Farming Network, and the Food Lab at Google. Cathryn is a CNN Hero and has been a finalist for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leaders Award, finalist for the James Irvine Leadership Award, and a Red Cross Adult Humanitarian Hero.
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Greg Watson
Schumacher Center for a New Economics
Greg Watson
Greg is Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, which combines theoretical research with practical application to promote the “new economy.” His work currently focuses on community food systems and the dynamics between local and geo-economic systems.
Greg has spent nearly 40 years learning to understand systems thinking as inspired by Buckminster Fuller and to apply that understanding to achieve a just and sustainable world.
Says Greg, “One of the most important things humans can do as constructive passengers aboard Spaceship Earth is to help restore the health of our planet’s soils and climate.”
Greg has also served as the Commissioner of Agriculture in Massachusetts first from 1990 to 1993 and then again from 2012 to 2014. Watson gained hands-on experience in organic farming, aquaculture, wind-energy technology, and passive solar design at the New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, first as Education Director and later as Executive Director. He served as the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust and was Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a multicultural grassroots organizing and planning organization for which he initiated one of the nation’s first urban agriculture programs.
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Carol Sanford
Regenerative Paradigm Institute
Paradigm disruptor, positive contrarian, developmental storyteller
Carol Sanford
Carol is a Senior Fellow of Social Innovation at Babson College and the CEO of The Regenerative Paradigm Institute where she is focused on supporting organizations shifting whole fields and Industries toward a Living Systems Paradigm. Carol is an educator and social change designer for those in change agents roles, organizational leaders who aspire to make a difference, and business and organizational teams pursuing non-displaceability.
Carol has authored five award-winning best sellers, including The Regenerative Life: Transform Any Organization, Our Society, Your Destiny, No More Feedback, and The Regenerative Business. All five books are built around case stories of specific transformation in people, business, community and regions. Carol is also the Executive Producer of The Regenerative Business Summit, and Executive Producer of the Business Second Opinion Podcast.
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Dan Kittredge
Bionutrient Food Association
Real Food Campaign
Real Food Campaign
Farmer, founder/executive director of BFA and RFC
Dan Kittredge
Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.”
Dan grew up on Many Hands Organic Farm in central Massachusetts with his parents, Julie Rawson, NOFA-MA Executive Director, and Jack Kittredge, Natural Farmer publisher. After a global career in food and seed activism where he worked with farmers across India, Russia, and South America, Dan returned to the U.S. in 2010 to launch the BFA and ignite a movement around food quality.
Dan has become one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” and works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health through workshops and speaking engagements across the country and globe, and this, the annual Soil & Nutrition Conference.
In 2018, Dan launched the Real Food Campaign (RFC) that, with open-source science partners Our-Sci and FarmOS, are leading the effort to identify and increase nutrition in the food supply. The RFC has engineered and unveiled a prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer, the Bionutrient Meter, designed to test nutrient density at point of purchase and bring transparency to the marketplace. Via the Bionutrient Meter, the goal is to empower consumers to choose for nutrient quality and thereby leverage economic incentives to drive full system regeneration.
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Lindsay Rebhan
Lindsay Rebhan is co-owner of Ecological Design, a woman owned land planning and design Company. A specialist in agroecology, land use, farm design and land management, Lindsay works with farmers, land owners, food nonprofits and organizations to increase the natural wealth of land over time. She is passionate about seeing land alive with life, employment, learning and nourishment. Lindsay is also a speaker and educator on ecosystem regeneration, she co-teaches an annual Regenerative Farm Design Course at Mastodon Valley Farm and a semester college course on Environmental Sustainability with HECUA at Lily Springs Farm. She serves on the grant review committee for USDA Beginning Farmer Rancher Development Program and is on the Advisory Council of Savanna Institute.
She homesteads with her family in Somerset Wisconsin, in the St. Croix River valley, land of the Dakota, Anishinaabe and Ho Chunk.
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Jill Clapperton, Ph.D
Jill is the Principal Scientist and CEO of Rhizoterra Inc, and is an internationally-recognized educator on how to create, measure, and maintain healthy productive soils that produce tasty nutrient-dense food. Jill has a PhD in Plant Ecophysiology, and worked as the Rhizosphere Ecologist for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for 16 years before founding Rhizoterra Inc (a USA-based company). Jill sits as a board member for the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association coordinating the Farmed Smart Program that certifies farms as Sustainable and Regenerative. Rhizoterra is also a partner in Our Grounded Growth and the Real Food Campaign, supporting markets for farmers that have healthy soils and grow nutrient-dense food. Rhizoterra Inc is an international food security consulting company guiding people, organizations, and corporations as they endeavor to create and measure healthy productive soils that grow tasty, nutrient-dense food in a way that honors our farming culture, regenerates arable lands, and sustains environmental integrity.
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David Strelneck
David founded the global Nourishment Economies Coalition in 2016, building on ten years’ effort to find, support, and study the economics of “regenerative” enterprises in rural communities. Ranging across 26 countries from the United States to Ireland to Zambia to Indonesia, these enterprises are figuring out how to sustain and grow themselves based on the many tangible benefits of aligning natural ecology, farming, food systems, and human healthcare in innovative ways – often with nutritional relationships between nature, soils and people at the centerpoint.
David and his team now pursue four entrepreneurship, policy, and science strategies to help spread this dynamic in the world. This Nourishment Economies focus grows out of David’s 28 years’ experience organizing systems-focused environmental projects and initiatives with local communities, companies, citizen-sector organizations like the African Wildlife Foundation and Ashoka and Costa Rica’s Tropical Science Center, and multilateral organizations including United Nations agencies and the World Bank. David splits his personal time between his family’s small farm site in Maine, and the high mountains along the California-Nevada border where he was born and raised. He has degrees in Political Science and Public Policy from Stanford University and Harvard University.
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James White
Dr. James F. White is Professor of Plant Biology at Rutgers University where he and students conduct research on beneficial microbes that inhabit plant tissues. His work provides a new perspective on plant pathology, susceptibility to soil-borne pathogens, and plant absorption of nutrients, in particular how endophytes, non-pathogenic fungal and bacterial organisms present in all plants, are a mechanism by which plants can absorb complete molecules, internalize and propagate soil-borne microbes, and nullify pathogenic organisms.
James is the author of more than 240 articles and book chapters, and author and editor of seven books on the biology of plant microbes, including Biotechnology of Acremonium Endophytes of Grasses (1994), Microbial Endophytes (2000), The Clavicipitalean Fungi (2004), The Fungal Community: Its Organization and Role in the Ecosystem (2005, 2017), Defensive Mutualism in Microbial Symbiosis (2009), and Seed Endophytes: Biology and Biotechnology (2019) and Microbial Inoculants and Other Microbiome Stimulants for Crops: Mechanisms and Applications (2021; Elsevier, In press). James has presented extensively at international industry and academic conferences focused on regenerative agriculture, plant biostimulants and crop microbiomes, and has also done numerous webinars and podcasts on the same topics.
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Pascal Fafard
Agronomist, farm consultant, speaker
Pascal Fafard
Pascal Fafard is a consultant and crop advisor in Quebec, Canada. He holds a degree in agronomy and has been supporting and mentoring fruit and vegetable growers for over 25 years. While working with IPM, nutrition and vitality advising, and the typical agronomic considerations, he realized that taking care of the growers is as important as the grower taking care of plants.
Pascal works with growers to tune into and adopt more intuitive farming practices in the hopes of fostering greater peace of mind, increased clarity and enjoyment, better plant vitality and improved business productivity. He is committed to life in all its many forms and brings a perspective that stresses the importance of a close partnership between man and nature, an innovative approach that encourages growers to unlock their full potential and strive to realize what is most important to them.
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Faith Reeves
Faith has a passion for learning how to produce truly nutritious food while regenerating soils. She is the Farm Manager of the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) demonstration farm, and has designed, promoted and managed a Business Supported Agriculture (BSA) model for the last 10 years. She has a certificate in Nutrition Farming® from NTS, a certificate in Permaculture Design, and is a graduate of Elaine Ingham’s “Living Soils” class. She is a budding, enthusiastic and self-taught living soils consultant and agronomist. Microbes + Minerals = Magic
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Greg Austic
Greg is an open technology advocate, principal developer at Our Sci, as well as co-organizer of the Gathering of Open Science Hardware (GOSH) and the Gathering for Open Ag Tech (GOAT). He’s a jack of all trades capable of getting an idea off the ground quickly and inexpensively. Prior to Our Sci, Greg co-founded PhotosynQ, a platform for collecting, sharing, and analyzing plant health data, and the MultispeQ, a low-cost device to measure photosynthesis.
With this background in successful open source technologies, Greg and his team at Our Sci have partnered with the BFA and Real Food Campaign, and will lead the development of the platform and sensors for the Bionutrient Meter.
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Dan TerAvest
Dr. Dan TerAvest is a Soil Scientist and co-founder of Our Sci LLC. Our Sci’s mission is to support community-driven environmental and agricultural research through the development of open source hardware and software and training. For the past 5 years Dan has been bridging the divide between tool development and user experience, coordinating between technical and user teams in the US, Africa, and Australia to develop appropriate tools and methods. Prior to becoming engaged in community-driven research, Dan spent over 5 years living in eastern and southern Africa working with smallholder agricultural systems.
Dan and the team at Our Sci have partnered with the BFA and the Real Food Campaign, leading the development of the data platform and sensors for the Bionutrient Meter. Dan has developed and led the RFC’s community partner programs over the past 2 years, working with farmers and citizen scientists in the RFC network to supply the RFC lab with the samples and sample metadata (how the food was grown, labelled, etc) needed to build a robust library of food, soil and management data.
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Lisa Stokke
Lisa Stokke is the founder and executive director of Next 7, a non-profit organization with the mission of building a platform for vital action that benefits future generations. Her advocacy work as co-founder of Food Democracy Now! has brought public awareness to supporting organic and regenerative agriculture, and the importance of progressive policies and regulations that benefit family farmers, citizens and the environment. It has been featured in the book Modified, and other national media outlets. She was also recognized in Shape magazine as “Mom of the Year” and a “Woman Making a Difference” for her commitment and work to a healthier food supply for future generations.
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Rudolf Zantinge
Early in his career, Dolf worked in a variety of engineering and IT related technologies such as data warehousing, data mining/artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and fiber optics, working with clients from around the world and founding several companies along the way.
Becoming interested in the effects light and water have in biological systems, Dolf proceeded to develop innovative technologies that could measure the effects of energies and waves to improve the quality of water and food.
Through this work, Dolf co-founded Water and Light, an organization seeking methods to increase the energy levels in water, food, animals, and humans, working with pioneering technologies such as biophotons and a diverse array of optical devices to measure our biological systems.
His work has focused on the field of agriculture and health in an effort to utilize these technologies to improve soil, seeds and vegetables. After more than 12 years of research in both greenhouses and open land, the team is now able to improve the quality of water with tangible positive results in the world of agriculture. He and his team are now working with farmers around the world.
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Emma Sutphen
Emma is a first generation regenerative farmer and the coordinator of the Real Food Campaign Grower Partner Program. She is passionate about building the Real Food Campaign Grower Partner Network and local food communities. Emma works and resides on her biodynamic farm, Adesa Farm, in North Stonington, CT.
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Emily Brady
Emily Brady is the Citizen Science Coordinator and a Lab Technician for the Real Food Campaign. She recently started working full time for the RFC after interning while earning her undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan. In her current role she works with Citizen Scientist Partners to organize monthly sampling in addition to larger scale sampling projects like the Food Desert Experiment. She is passionate about socially engaged design and collaborative research.
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Caro Roszell
NOFA/Mass
Soil health advisor & advocate, organizer, agroforestry-curious market gardener
Caro Roszell
Caro is the Director of Education & Soil Health Initiatives at the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter (NOFA/Mass) where her responsibilities include overseeing the organization’s Education Department as well as coordinating the Soil Carbon Program and Soil Technical Assistance team and serving as the Project Lead on several multi-year on-farm soil health grant projects across the Northeast region (with support from SARE, NRCS CIG, MDAR, Patagonia, and others). Projects mostly focus on tillage reduction and soil health outcomes on organic farms. Caro has nearly ten years of experience in organic farming and is currently undertaking a project to convert her 1-acre homestead from a quarter-acre vegetable market garden to a diversified food forest.
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Eric Jackson
Eric began his career with The Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis. He went on to join International Proteins Corporation where he led an MBO of IPC, which they subsequently sold to The Scoular Company five years later. Joining Scoular’s BoD, Eric formed the Industrial Markets Division that established Scoular as a significant global market player in food ingredients, feed ingredients, and container freight. After 25 years of corporate life, Eric’s journey led him on a series of ventures as a co-founder of Global Risk Management, CP Holdings, Conservis Corp. and currently as founder and chairman of Pipeline Foods.
A native of Urbana, IL, Eric earned a B.S. in Agricultural Economics at the University of Illinois before moving to his new home state of Minnesota. He has continued to serve his alma mater in a variety of roles throughout his career and received the College of ACES Award of Merit as well as becoming a charter member of The Round Barn Society and a Centuria Circle member of the U of I Foundation President’s Council.
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Steve Groff
Steve Groff and his family, farm 215 acres of cash grain crops, cover crops for seed, pumpkins, hard squash and heirloom tomatoes in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. For the past 25 years, his Cedar Meadow Farm has conducted thousands of cover crop research trials – out of which, Steve developed the Tillage Radish, a cover crop known and used around the world. For the past 20 years, Steve has pursued how to make nutrient-dense foods a reality on his farm. Steve is the founder of Cover Crop Coaching, which educates farmers and farm advisors about effective cover crop use and soil health principles. His recently released book, The Future-Proof Farm: Changing Mindsets in a Changing World, is available at SteveGroff.com.
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