Speakers
Pre-conference Advanced Seminar Speakers
Peter Bane
Peter Bane is author of The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country. For 25 years, he published Permaculture Activist, and serves on the Editorial Board of its successor, Permaculture Design magazine. Past President and now Executive Director of Permaculture Institute of North America, he has taught and designed throughout the temperate and tropical Americas from Canada to Patagonia, training thousands in his workshops, and reaching more through conferences, radio interviews, and print articles. A pioneer in natural building, renewable energy, and eco-village design, for 15 years he has championed small-scale suburban and peri-urban farming for food sovereignty, land repair, and community resilience. With his partner Keith Johnson, he nurtures 6 acres of oak woods and 4 more of annual and perennial crops in west Michigan’s Lakeshore region.
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Mark Fulford
Explains Mark very simply, “Quality of life is a health issue. Good health is food dependent, and good food depends on soil health.”
Mark Fulford is a well known, independent farm consultant and educator whose range of topics and expertise encompasses: transitioning from conventional to organic and biological agriculture; soil, crop, and forage nutrition; and preparing agriculture for peak oil, climate change and economic drift. He also teaches non-electric water technologies, hands-on skills in organic orcharding, organic no-till crop production, commercial and small scale composting, as well as fundamental rural skills and small farm food preservation.
Mark addresses audiences from a wide range of backgrounds and philosophies embracing common sense, science and cultural wisdom for the times we live in. His lifelong study of the natural world and immersion in agriculture on his own farm and abroad, grounds his practices in experience. Mark and his wife, Paula, own and operate Teltane Farm in Monroe, Maine.
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Guido Masé
Guido Masé RH(AHG) is a clinical herbalist, herbal educator, and garden steward specializing in holistic Western herbalism, though his approach is eclectic and draws upon many influences. He spent his childhood in Italy and has been living in Vermont since 1996.
He is a founder, faculty member and clinical supervisor at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, a 501(c)(3) non-profit herbal medicine clinic and school that provides comprehensive services focused on whole plants and whole foods.
He serves as chief herbalist for Urban Moonshine, where he works on research, development and quality control for an all-organic whole-plant tincture line. He is a founding member of the Burlington Herb Clinic where he works in clinical practice. He is a teacher of herbal medicine at the University of Vermont, and is the author of The Wild Medicine Solution: Healing with Aromatic, Bitter and Tonic Plants and DIY Bitters. He is currently developing the integrative phytotherapy department at Wasso District Hospital in Loliondo, Tanzania.
Guido’s teaching style focuses on conveying the interconnections within the human organism and between the organism and its surrounding ecology. Relying on clinical experience, storytelling, and scientific research, he believes that true strength flows from nature, and that herbal medicine is key to sustainable, successful living.
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Alexander "Sande" Beddoe
Author, educator, chronicler of RBTI
Alexander F. “Sande” Beddoe, DDS
Over five decades ago Dr. Beddoe began to realize that there had to be a better way of addressing the cause of dental disease than simply by repair—known as “drill, fill and bill.” This led him on a fascinating odyssey that resulted in an encounter with Dr. Carey A. Reams in the mid-70s. That meeting began a 10 year relationship where Dr. Beddoe not only assisted Dr. Reams in teaching some of his seminars, but Dr. Beddoe wrote the only textbooks about Reams’ Biological Theory of Ionization (RBTI) as it applied to not only soil and animal health, but also to human health. Before his death, Dr. Reams read and approved the content of Dr. Beddoe’s textbooks and formally wrote Dr. Beddoe specifically asking him to carry on the RBTI work passing on the mantel with his blessing.
Although Dr. Beddoe was trained and practiced as a dental physician, he early came to discern that the absolute key to understanding the cause of degenerative disease, as well as perfect health, was contained in Reams’ Biological Theory of Ionization principles. These principles were the foundation and exclusive tool of his clinical nutrition practice, as well as his lecturing, teaching and consulting in human nutrition and agricultural soil chemistry.
As a recognized authority as well as an enthusiastic teacher and lecturer on Dr. Reams’ Biological Theory of Ionization principles, Dr. Beddoe has authored several books on the subject, including:
– Biologic Theory of Ionization As Applied To Human Nutrition,
– Biologic Theory of Ionization As Applied To Farming And Soil Management,
– Nourishment Home Grown,
– The Calcium Kit
– Profiles Of Living
– The Intelligent Farmer
– Biologic Theory of Ionization As Applied To Farming And Soil Management,
– Nourishment Home Grown,
– The Calcium Kit
– Profiles Of Living
– The Intelligent Farmer
Dr. Beddoe is always ready to point out how vital a proper understanding of calcium is, both in the soil as well as in the diet and chemistry of the plant, animal and especially the human. Reams proved that all the physical manifestations of disease have a root cause in mineral deficiency—beginning with calcium. Dr. Beddoe believes that calcium, as the most vital mineral in biologic life, can only be properly understood in the light of Reams’ Biologic Theory of Ionization principles. And because of the unique pioneering work of Dr. Reams, Dr. Beddoe believes that “healthy soil can have more effect on the health of the planet than all the medical institutions and practitioners in the entire world put together.”
Advanced Ideals Institute is the web organization responsible to promoting Dr. Beddoe’s RBTI work on behalf of Dr. Reams. You are personally invited to visit Advanced Ideals Institute’s website at http://advancedideals.org to experience for yourself what Dr. Beddoe’s work has to offer you in learning RBTI and how it can work for you.
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Conference Speakers
Judith D. Schwartz
Author, journalist
Judith D. Schwartz
Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist whose recent work looks at soil as a hub for multiple environmental, economic, and social challenges and solutions. She has reported on environmental economics and land/climate dynamics for publications including Scientific American, Yale e360, Time and The Christian Science Monitor. Her 2013 book Cows Save the Planet was awarded a Nautilus Book Award Silver Prize for Sustainability and was among Booklist’s Top 10 Books on Sustainability in 2014. Her most recent book is Water In Plain Sight: Hope for A Thirsty World, which examines how human activity has damaged global water and climate systems and what we can do to restore them. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and Brown University, Judith lives in Vermont with her family.
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Dr. Maya Shetreat, MD
Dr. Maya Shetreat is a neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer, and author of The Dirt Cure: Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child (Simon and Schuster, 2016), which has been translated into ten languages. She has been featured in the New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more.
Maya is the founder of the Terrain Institute, where she teaches Terrain Medicine™, earth-based programs for transformational healing. She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers in Ecuador, and is a lifelong student of ethnobotany, plant healing, and the sacred.
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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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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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John D. Liu
Ecosystem Restoration Camps, Environmental Education Media Project
Filmmaker, ecologist, researcher, author
John D. Liu
After 15 years as a television producer and cameraman for news organizations, John began to study ecology. In the mid-1990’s he began a participatory process with a number of media and broadcasting colleagues in Beijing that led to the creation of the Environmental Education Media Project for China (EEMPC), which he has directed the from its beginning and now serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board. The EEMPC has distributed over 1000 environmental films in China since then. Over the years their activities have broadened beyond China to include the entire world and to include the production of environmental and ecological films. From 2003–2006 John was a visiting fellow with the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of the West of England. In 2006 he was named the Rothamsted International Fellow for the Communication of Science. From 2010–2013 John was a Senior Research Fellow for IUCN. In 2013 he received the Communications Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration, Green Gold, a film about his work produced by the VPRO won a Prix Italia award. Hope in a Changing Climate was named the best ecosystem film by the International Wildlife Film Festival and won several other honors . Most recently, John founded Ecosystem Restoration Camps in 2017, a worldwide movement that aims to restore damaged ecosystems on a large scale.
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Jordan Schmidt, NTP
Jordan Schmidt is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, instructor for the Nutritional Therapy Association, movement teacher, and a farmer in the Hudson Valley, New York. She has spent a decade working with organic farm systems and is fascinated by the connections between the health of our broader environment and the health of our internal bodies. She is passionate about supporting and restoring wellness in the face of a world and healthcare system that often make it difficult.
Jordan’s interest in nutrition and healing (in using food as foundational medicine) began as early as she can remember. Growing up with chronic asthma, allergies and digestive issues she was aware that her body responded to diet, stress, and environment. Her own healing journey was gradual, but transformative. Using dietary changes that combine ancestral knowledge and modern science, specific high quality supplements, and important lifestyle modifications she has truly changed her own health. She no longer relies on asthma or allergy medication, nor does she suffer from debilitating digestive distress.
The tangible process of healing her own body and respect that she has gained for the complexity of how our bodies work, led her to pursue a nutritional counseling certificate with the Nutritional Therapy Association, which allowed her to solidify the foundational knowledge needed to help others understand dysfunction and regain their health.
Jordan is also a certified yoga instructor who teaches with attention to alignment and functional movement. She continues to study nutrigenomics & methylation therapies, herbalism, and the microbiome. When she’s not working with clients or instructing for the NTA, Jordan moonlights in growing herbs, foraging food, and geeking out about pasture on the grassfed dairy she runs with her partner. She is now thrilled to offer the kind of practical, personal, supportive whole-person care she wished for as she was navigating her own healing journey.
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Cathryn Couch
Ceres Community Project
Founder/Executive Director, 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 120,000 organic medically tailored meals annually to primarily 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 is one of six agencies currently implementing the first statewide food as medicine pilot for MediCal patients with congestive heart failure. Couch served as Director of Communications for The Hunger Project from 1987 to 1991, and founded the first organic home delivered meal services in the San Francisco Bay Region in 1993. She is a finalist for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leaders Award, Leader in Sustainability Award from the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy, finalist for the James Irvine Leadership Award, Red Cross Adult Humanitarian Hero for Northern California and a CNN Hero.
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Mark Shepard
Mark Shepard is the CEO of Restoration Agriculture Development, Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, and runs New Forest Farm, a 110 acre perennial agricultural savanna, one of the first of its kind in the USA. New Forest Farm is a planned conversion of a typical row-crops grain farm into a commercial-scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem using oak savanna, successional brushland and eastern woodlands as the ecological models.
Trees, shrubs, vines, canes, perennial plants and fungi are planted in association with one another to produce food (for humans and animals) fuel, medicines, and beauty. Hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts and various fruits are the primary woody crops. The farm is solar and wind powered.
Trained in both mechanical engineering and ecology, Mark has developed and patented equipment and processes for the cultivation, harvesting and processing of forest derived agricultural products for human foods and bio fuels production. Mark was certified as a Permaculture designer in 1993 and received his Diploma of Permaculture design from Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement.
He is the author of the bestselling book Restoration Agriculture: Real-World Permaculture for Farmers, available at http://www.acresusa.com/restoration-agriculture-in-practice-book-dvd-combo
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Peter McCoy
Peter speaks on behalf of the fungi, the most overlooked and misrepresented organisms in the web of life. An interdisciplinary, systems-oriented mycology educator with nearly two decades of accumulated study and experience, Peter is an original founder of Radical Mycology and MYCOLOGOS, the world’s first mycology school, and the mycology advisor to Open Source Ecology and Permaculture Magazine North America. Apart from his work with fungi, he is also a community organizer, artist, musician, lecturer, and teacher.
In 2016, Peter released Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing & Working With Fungi, a 650-page book on accessible mycology, mushroom cultivation, mycoremediation, and more. The book has since been hailed as one of the most accessible texts on the science and art of mycology, offering unique, thorough, and cutting-edge insights and applications in the rapidly evolving field.
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Mas Sajady
Founder of Exponential Intelligence®, transformation healer
Mas Sajady
Mas Sajady, founder of Exponential Intelligence®, MediMorphosis® and Medihealing® has helped tens of thousands around the world break through challenging situations in their personal and professional lives so they achieve not only success, but also significance in their lives.
Exponential Intelligence® (EI) is a science based body of knowledge that Mas Sajady discovered after his 2nd near death experience. EI explains the secrets to success and happiness from a quantum physics perspective. The process removes issues at the core of your being so you can reach your optimum potentiality and attain rapid & tangible results.
Mas is known as a game changer throughout the world as well as one of the best kept secrets for high profile individuals. He has worked with business and political leaders, influencers, medical and healthcare providers, professional athletes, celebrities, and more. Mas also donates his time to assist schools, hospitals, special need groups, local communities and people from all walks of life.
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Mark Cohen
Independent organic inspector, farmer, ethnobotanist, educator and consultant
Mark Cohen
Mark has a background in wildlife biology, ecology, ethnobotany, permaculture, cooperative land use, and renewable energy. Mark has been an organic inspector with OEFFA for 26 years, and lives in Southern Ohio at Far Valley Farm, a 30-year old intentional community he helped co-found. Living off the grid for 37 years and growing a wide range of crops, seeds, honey, mushrooms, and medicinals. He founded the Belize Agroforestry Research Center, a permaculture research and teaching facility based in Southern Belize, and spent 25 winters in Central America practicing and teaching tropical permaculture. Mark is constantly learning, teaching, and consulting (cross-pollinating) in his travels.
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Beverly Rubik
Institute for Frontier Science
Founder/Director of IFS
Faculty member, Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, Saybrook University
Beverly Rubik, PhD
Beverly Rubik earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics at University of California, Berkeley. She is internationally renowned for her research on the biofield, the field of energy-with-information of living systems. Beverly is president/ founder of the Institute for Frontier Science, a nonprofit laboratory in Oakland, California, and is also adjunct faculty in Integrative Health at Saybrook University.
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Nate Kleinman
Nate has a longtime interest in horticulture, and is a farmer in Elmer, New Jersey. He runs the Experimental Farm Network, a non-profit, volunteer seed-sharing and plant breeding group he co-founded in 2013. Composed of professional and amateur farmers, gardeners, plant breeders, and researchers, EFN facilitates collaborative plant breeding and sustainable agriculture research in order to fight global climate change, preserve the natural environment, and ensure food security for humanity into the distant future. Nate believes participatory plant breeding on a massive scale can lead to breakthroughs that can help us not only adapt to climate change, but one day actually stabilize the climate.
“The twin scourges of our time are climate change and injustice. I hope EFN will serve to combat both,” he says. “By generating and sharing more sustainable alternatives for farmers and consumers, we can not only create an agricultural system geared toward climate change mitigation, but also challenge some of history’s most destructive corporations. Our current system is unsustainable. We need to build something better.”
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Ellen Hodgson Brown
Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books, the latest titled Banking on the People: Democratizing Finance in the Digital Age. In her 2007 best-selling book, Web of Debt, she presents an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust,” showing how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves and how we the people can get it back. The Public Bank Solution traces the evolution of two banking models that have competed historically, public and private; and explores contemporary public banking systems globally. Her book Forbidden Medicine traces the suppression of natural health treatments to the same corrupting influences that have captured the money system. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.
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Brigitta Jansen
Functional Nutritionist
Brigitta Jansen, MS
Brigitta practices Functional Medicine Nutrition in Connecticut. As a nutritionist, she aims to address the root cause of disease instead of just managing symptoms. Her nutrition philosophy is to support the body’s innate ability to heal itself, using personalized diet and supplement plans, as well as lifestyle counseling, and other natural therapies.
As a nutritionist and longtime local food activist, she is passionate about helping people discover the healing power of real food, and has been a chapter leader for the Weston A Price Foundation since 2006, promoting access to unprocessed local organic and pastured traditional foods.
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Glen Rein, PhD
Dr. Rein received his PhD from the University of London and pursued his academic research interest in neurochemistry and psychoneuroimmunology at Harvard and Stanford Medical Schools, culminating in an Assistant Professorship at Mt. Sinai Medical School in New York where he researched Bioelectromagnetics. In the late 1980’s with a grant from the Fetzer Institute, he established the Quantum-Biology Research Lab which focused on the biological effects of non-classical electromagnetic fields, including those emitted from healers. In addition, Dr. Rein began his research studying the effects of these forms of subtle energy on water. In 1995 he joined Estée Lauder’s New Venture department to put ‘energy’ into their products. He has authored nearly 50 academic articles and scientific patents. Dr. Rein is on the board of numerous international organizations, has been on several radio and TV shows and lectures worldwide on his pioneering research. Recently, he formed Glee Biologics which is developing water based commercial products imprinted with energetic information for nutraceutical and agricultural applications.
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Jim Oschman
Jim Oschman is a biophysicist and an internationally recognized expert on the scientific basis for Energy and Informational Medicine. He has contributed scientific perspectives that clarify controversial issues such as the nature of biological energetics and energetic therapeutics. He has also written extensively on electromagnetic pollution, the mechanisms by which it can produce biological effects, and what can be done about it. Jim has written several popular books on the scientific basis of energy medicine, including Energy Medicine: the scientific basis (Churchill Livingstone, 2000), Energy Medicine in Therapeutics and Human Performance (Butterworth Heinemann, 2003), and the second edition of Energy Medicine: the scientific basis (Elsevier, 2016). He has also written about 120 articles, including some of the leading peer-reviewed scientific journals and journals on alternative medicine. He has contributed chapters and forwards for many books. Jim provides diverse and multi-disciplinary perspectives based on a variety of types of scientific research and personal experiences. Jim has presented lectures and workshops in about 25 countries around the world. His current research concerns the wellness benefits of connecting with the surface of the earth.
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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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Olivier Husson
Centre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development
Researcher, educator, agroecologist
Olivier Husson, PhD
Engineer in agronomy (ENSA Montpellier, FR) and Doctor in Agronomy (Wageningen University, NL), Olivier Husson works at CIRAD (Centre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development), in the AIDA Research Unit (Agroecology and Sustainable Intensification of Annual crops). For 30 years, he has been working on co-designing with farmers Conservation Agriculture systems based on Direct Seeding on permanent soil cover in tropical areas (West Africa, Viet Nam, Madagascar), alternating fundamental research, applied research, training and extension works. Since 2010, he has been developing a “bioelectronics” approach, aiming at using pH, Eh (redox potential) and EC (electrical conductivity) as indicators of soil and plant health and using these indicators as management tools for agroecological crop protection.
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Liz Taggart
Combining her 45-year-long interest in practicing and teaching meditation, and studying the practices found in the ancient Sanskrit texts of the Vedas, Liz approaches farming with an understanding of “inner and outer sustainability.” The consciousness-based practices of the Vedas, such as Yoga and Ayurveda, and dozens of others, provide growers with the tools to culture their inner unlimited resources. In turn, farming is approached from a holistic understanding that all of nature, all aspects of a farm – the farmer, the farm, the plants, animals, seasons, and universe – all function from a common source of consciousness and intelligence. Holistic farming yields extraordinary harvests.
Established 10 years ago, Amba Farms is an award winning organic farm, focused on nutrient dense soil and carefully sourced seeds, and grows a wide variety of produce, berries, fruits and flowers for restaurants, markets and CSA members in Northern Westchester, NY.
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Dan Young
Dan is a retired engineer with specialties in chemical and environmental engineering. He has forty years of experience in chemical-pharmaceutical production processes, water treatment processes, high temperature thermal treatment processes, energy efficiency, groundwater quality management and contaminated site remediation.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a masters degree in environmental science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. His specialty is environmental thermodynamics of non-equilibrium systems with particular interest in how the Second Law of thermodynamics effects biological systems and climate change.
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Doug DeCandia
Farmer, activist, educator
Doug DeCandia
Doug works as a grower, farm-based educator and organizer in the Hudson Valley of New York. For the last 9 years, he has been working in prisons, jails and other “correctional facilities”, building gardens and growing food and medicine with folks experiencing incarceration. Together, he helps transform degenerated areas of neglected earth from dirt back into soil and the life-supporting foundation of our collective growth. Using restorative agricultural practices, he is creating spaces that are food producing and healing, and support the re-connecting of people to self, to others and to the land.
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Pius Floris
Pius has a degree in Agronomy, and has studied phytopathology at the University of Durham, specializing in tree biology. He is the founder of the single largest specialized tree care company in Europe. The expertise that he and his team developed on root systems and mineral requirements for plants and trees resulted in realizing that the current fertilizing “laws” are really based on 16 elements, while the ashes from burned wood contain a minimum of 35 minerals. In 1977, he founded Plant Health Cure (PHC). PHC has a specialized mycorrhizal and root laboratory, and is involved in the production of specific rhizobacteria and mycorrhizal spores to help increase the populations of these organisms in damaged and destroyed soils. PHC products and expertise is now exported to 37 countries; from banana production in Ecuador and Peru to sheep grass production on the mineral island of Iceland, from Dutch potato farms to smallholder farms in Eastern Europe and Spain, and large scale production of vegetables in Africa and China. The aim of PHC is to help both seed producers and growers to grow plants to the maximum of their genetic capacity by making sure that the plants receive all the minerals they require.
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John Ikerd
Author, speaker, activist
John Ikerd
Dr. Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He spent thirty years in various professorial positions at North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Georgia, and most ultimately as Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri before retiring in early 2000. He now spends most of his time writing and speaking on issues related to sustainability with an emphasis on economics and agriculture.
The first, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense (2005), was written for a wide audience of people concerned with the future of the planet and with the continued vitality of global capitalism. Next came A Return to Common Sense (2007), with its call for social change based on our collective notions of what is true, right, and good—our common sense. 2008 saw John publishing two books, Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People Through Agriculture and Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture. In Small Farms, John builds the case for the importance of small farms in sustainable agriculture specifically, and for sustainability in general, while Crisis and Opportunity is a critique of industrial agriculture, reviewing the history of the sustainable agriculture movement, and then providing instances of hope in building a sustainable future. Revolution of the Middle…and the Pursuit of Happiness, published in 2011, “goes a long way” said Fred Kirschenmann, “towards helping us envision how we might…change our vision from pursuing wealth to pursuing happiness.” Most recently, John wrote The Essentials of Economic Sustainability, a synthesis of principles from capitalist, socialist, and sustainable thinking viewed through common sense, with the brilliance of this book lying both in its capacity to be used and understood by people of any ideological or political persuasion and in its cooperative and reconciliatory tone.
John has become a leading figure in the sustainability revolution—one who is capable of deep insights but also has the capacity to engage everyone in the conversation and work. He has found himself at the edge of what is possible in the discipline and has turned his efforts to using his voice and position to advocate for radical change and to help others to both understand this necessity and to be able to advocate for themselves. In 2014, John was commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to write the North American report on “family farming” in recognition of the International Year of the Family Farm. In his report, he makes the case for multifunctional farms of the future that protect and renew natural ecosystem and create and nurture caring communities as they provide economic livelihoods for farm families.
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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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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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Dorn Cox
Dorn Cox is a farmer working his 250-acre multigenerational family farm in New Hampshire, and works with numerous organizations as an advocate for regenerative eco-agriculture, including Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment and GreenStart, of which he is Executive Director. His participatory research focuses on collaborative open source research and development for regenerative agricultural systems.
Toward that end, Dorn is a founding member of the Farm Hack community and co-founded the FarmOS software platform. He has developed and shared systems for small-scale grain and oil seeds processing, biofuel production, and no-till and low-till equipment and cover crop systems to increase carbon capture and soil health.
Dorn is also a founding member of the New England Farmers Union, the Great Bay Grain Cooperative, and the Oyster River Biofuel Initiative, as well as an active member of Soil Renaissance as a member of the Measurement Committee. He has a PhD from the University of New Hampshire in Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science.
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Kris Hubbard
Kentucky native Kris Hubbard may not have a cell phone, but he isn’t just your ordinary mountain living, overalls-wearing farmer. While he is the founder and owner of Wild Wood Farms and Wild Wood Farms Heirloom Seed Company, he is also a teacher of Ethnobotany and Cultural Anthropology, and a registered Herbalist who practices natural medicine. That’s only a few of his many daily jobs.
Seed companies in the region are hard to come by, but Wild Wood Farms is filling that gap. While the local food movement works to educate consumers about where the food on their plate comes from, Kris takes this sentiment one step further, educating his community about where the seed that grew their food came from. How were the seeds grown? What is the history that brought that particular tomato to your plate? Kris wants to be the farmer and seed supplier “that customers know, that you can see face to face. If you had a problem with your plants you could call us, because you would know us.”
In addition to farming, Kris uses his background in anthropology and ethnobotany to preserve Appalachian and American Indian history and to teach his community about a wide variety of topics including the history, uses, and folklore of many plants.
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Derek Christianson
At Brix Bounty, started in 2008, Derek cultivates seven acres of mixed vegetables direct marketed through a CSA, farmstand, and market. They aim to produce high quality, nutrient dense food for the Southcoast
Community. Derek has been growing in the Northeast for the past 16 years and works as a consultant with growers, focusing his work on soil fertility and farm.
Derek currently serves as a project consultant for the Dartmouth YMCA – Sharing the Harvest Community Farm, the town of Dartmouth’s Agricultural Commission, and the Bionutrient Food Association board.
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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 Diagnostic Nutrition® Practitioner and Integrative Nutrition Health Nutrition Coach. She received specialized training in the biochemistry and specialized diets for autism, allergies, autoimmune and other chronic conditions and is a professionally-trained chef. Kathleen is the President and Founder of Rhode to Health, Inc., Nutritional Intelligence Academy and Nourished2Learn™. In 2014, Kathleen became a best-selling author with her first book, The Hidden Connection, and will soon release her next book End Chronic Disease: The Healing Power of Beliefs, Behaviors and Bacteria with Hay House in February 2020.
As a nutrition educator and researcher, Kathleen has dedicated her work to increase the public’s knowledge about the connection between nutrition and patterns of chronic disease. Her studies and practices aim to address the health of the whole and our interconnection to nature. Her personal journey back to health and her son’s autism recovery serve as the inspiration for her work and a reminder of our innate capacity to heal through the power of our daily choices.
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Dave Chapman
Dave has operated Long Wind Farm in Vermont since 1984, primarily growing primarily organic tomatoes in soil and under glass greenhouses. A strong advocate and defender of the true spirit of Organic, Dave has been active in speaking out against the USDA’s decision to allow the input-dependent confined animal operations and hydroponic industries to bend the rules and definition of Organic for their own benefit. Out of that activism was born the Real Organic Project which Dave co-founded and where he now serves on the Executive Board. Dave is also a founding member of the Vermont Organic Farmers, and has been active in the movement to Keep The Soil In Organic. He is proud to be a current member of the Policy Committee of the Organic Farmers Association, and has served on the USDA Hydroponic Task Force.
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Lisa Bloodnick
Lisa is a farmer and seed saver. In addition to her family farm, she helps run the Vestal Farmers Market and belongs to several organizations, including the Experimental Farm Network, aimed at reversing climate change by developing crops and agricultural systems, and Gardens Across America Project, a grassroots networking effort concerned with the loss of biodiversity. Through this network, Lisa now helps maintain close to 20,000 distinct seed varieties and landraces from around the globe.
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Jonas Hunter
Jonas Hunter has 20+ years experience in leading organizations in the Tech and NGO industries, and was the Founding Executive Director of Kiss the Ground. He has an international background and a passion for creating beautiful solutions and experiences. The past 10 years he has been working in Regenerative Agriculture and Sustainable Business as a COO, Coach, and Facilitator. He is always looking for ways to understand new ways of working together with curiosity, collaboration and finding the right question.
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Lydia Stokke
Lydia Stokke is Program Manager for Next 7, taking the lead on Next 7’s campaign for real food through citizen science. She lives near Boulder, Colorado.
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