Our second full day intensive is an opportunity for the EcoFarm community to engage in dialogue with movement leaders and with each other about the needed and possible transformation to a food system that enhances planetary health and human prosperity.
Learn all about the mysteries of the living soil, meet fellow soil stewards and join the carbon-farming revolution! In-depth presentations by leading soil health visionaries, organizers, policy groups and practitioners will be complemented by ample time for dialogue during Q&A and in break-out groups.
It is crucial that we as a community and as individuals communicate the importance of soil stewardship within the environmental community, to our elected officials and to the general public. To facilitate this, we will review visual materials, messaging and outreach tools for effective grassroots movement building. We’ll also give an overview of current regional and State policies in support of regenerative practices and how to take advantage of available government grants and initiatives.
Presenters include:
Agronomist Ray "The-Soil-Guy” Archuleta was nearly drummed out of the Natural Resources Conservation Service early this century for espousing “radical” soil health notions. More recently, Ray spearheaded his agency’s renaissance, energizing NRCS staff across the nation with science-based soil health evangelism, while mentoring cadres of cutting-edge no-tillers like Gabe Brown.
North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown is the celebrated poster kid for a new breed of no-till practitioners who, by embracing high-species-diversity cover crops, broadened rotations and adaptive ruminant grazing, have vastly improved their farms’ productivity, soil function and carbon-carrying capacity.
Late-blooming molecular biologist David Johnson is unraveling “secrets of the soil” on a microbial scale at New Mexico State University, where his Composting Bioreactor pumps out a uniquely fungal-dominant product. Experimental plots, inoculated with just a few hundred pounds per acre of this compost, are showing restored soil fertility with extraordinary biomass volumes and regenerated microbial diversity.
Cost: $90 (Includes organic lunch)
Special Price: $150 for both Regenerative Agriculture Pre-Conferences together!
