Program Coordinator, The Growing Experience | Founder, Hands in the Soil

Yancy Comins

Yancy began working at The Growing Experience to help lead the farm’s Micro-Enterprise program , Club Y.C.M.E. (Young Creatives Micro- Enterprise) in which he helped youth in the community develop a small business utilizing the farm as a product source. Yancy is now working on our CSA expansion program through a grant with the USDA.

Founder - Center for Sustainable Medicine | Board Chair - Soil Carbon Coalition

Didi Pershouse

Didi Pershouse is the author of  The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities and Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function. She teaches participatory workshops both in person and online, helping to connect the dots between soil health, human health, water, and climate resiliency.  She is   the founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine and the Land and Leadership Initiative, and a co-founder of the “Can we Rehydrate California?” Initiative. She was one of five speakers at the United Nations-FAO World Soil Day in 2017.

Accredited Field Professional in Holistic Management

Precious Phiri

Precious Phiri is a Zimbabwean Accredited Field Professional in Holistic Management education for communal areas. She is also Regeneration International’s Africa coordinator and steering committee member where she is networking and building  partnerships with different organisations to support and spread economic, social and ecological regeneration work and support policy influence. For nine years, she was the Coordinator of Training at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management- (the first Savory Hub in Zimbabwe). She continues to do work with communities and other civil society partners facilitating Holistic Management.

Intersectional Environmental Activist and Eco-Communicator

Leah Thomas

Leah is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and identifying the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected. You could say Leah’s trying to make the world a little more equal for everyone and a little nicer to our home planet!

She graduated from Chapman University in 2017 with a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy with a cluster in Comparative World Religions.

Leah remains committed to sparking conversation and mobilizing the environmental community to be anti-racist and not complicit, and encouraging and inspiring all members of our planet to explore new places, live more sustainably, and practice radical self acceptance.

In 2020, Leah launched Intersectional Environmentalist, a platform for resources, information and action steps to support intersectional environmentalism and dismantle systems of oppression in the environmental movement.

Kiss the Ground Co-Founder, Policy Director & Lead Educator

Finian Makepeace

Finian Makepeace is the Co-Founder, Policy Director & Lead Educator of Kiss the Ground. He is a renowned presenter, media creator, and thought leader in the field of regenerative agriculture and soil health. His dedication to Kiss the Ground’s mission of “awakening people to the possibilities of regeneration”, has motivated him to develop training programs, workshops, and talks designed to empower people around the world to become confident advocates for this growing movement.

Policy Analyst, Water, Agriculture & Wildlife, Nature Program at NRDC

Arohi Sharma

Arohi Sharma currently works for an environmental nonprofit organization—the Natural Resources Defense Council. She advocates for policies that protect and restore rivers and aquatic ecosystems in California and promote regenerative agricultural practices to reduce wasteful water use and to protect soil health. Before joining NRDC, Arohi was in graduate school, where she spent time researching ways to incentivize multi-stakeholder partnerships for climate change mitigation efforts and worked for the Ethiopian Government to help craft the nation’s first sustainable agricultural development strategy.

Prior to graduate school, Arohi served as a legislative staffer on Capitol Hill for the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and Senator Cory Booker. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. All the opinions shared during the interview are her own and do not represent the views of the organization she currently works for. You can learn more about her current work here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/arohi-sharma

Executive Director - Intertribal Agriculture Council

Zach Ducheneaux

Zach Ducheneaux is the Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council and the 3rd of 4 generations to work on the family cattle and horse ranch on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

The firsthand experiences he’s had in the Ag Finance industry, have helped inform innovative practices that have been implemented for nearly 2 years. These first of their kind financing arrangements are proving that the best tool for risk management, conservation, and value-added activities is cash in the producers pocket at the end of the year; while providing a return to investors.

“By decoupling finance from IRS depreciation schedules, we are able to engage in longer term relationships that better suit the capital needs of producers.”

If you would like to know more about the Intertribal Agriculture Council, Akiptan CDFI, and their work in Indian Country, he welcomes your call or email. He can be reached at [email protected] and 605-222-3852.

Regenerative Agriculture Specialist - California Ag Solutions Inc.

Cary Crum

The majority of Cary’s career has been working in ag sales and marketing for the fresh produce industry. He also has ten years of hands-on farming experience in trees and vines. It’s this combined experience that allows him to bring the kind of support and solutions growers need to overcome any problem and achieve optimum results.

Cary joined the CAS team in 2015 and has been building a strong understanding of the newest and best technologies that have been developed for today’s producers. He’s also been learning about the CAS approach to educating customers and working with them to develop strategies to efficiently utilize our products and achieve the best results for the grower. The grower’s success is his goal. He wants to build customer relationships that exceed expectations—adding profit to their operations and streamlining their businesses.

One of the most rewarding things Cary has done was taking each of his three children to tour historic sites on the east coast during their 8th grade year.  He was able to spend 2 weeks with each of them individually, sharing experiences that have helped shape the adults they have become.

Projects:

• Developed California no till dairy forage system
• Implemented cover crop system on 8000 acres of almonds in California
• Developed 25000 plus acres of conservation tillage production systems on California dairy farms in the San Joaquin valley
• Developed no till winter forage system in California dairy production
• Advise and consult with growers on putting regenerative ag practices on over 35000 acres

Executive Director - Regenerative Organic Alliance

Elizabeth Whitlow

Elizabeth Whitlow’s role as the Executive Director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) is the culmination of over 20 years working in the field of organic agriculture. Whitlow began her career as an advocate for shade-grown, fair-trade and organic coffee growers in Central America. Since then, she has worked across the spectrum of elevated certifications, both in farming and ranching, earning high-level placements with organizations such as CCOF and EarthClaims. She has also contributed to the brilliant work of organizations such as the Institute for Food & Development Policy, Sustainable Harvest, Coffee Kids, and the MesoAmerican Development Institute.

At the ROA, she oversees the finest details of the holistic and high-bar Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC™). The ROC™ is the North Star of certifications, building upon the Organic label through the pillars of soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness.

Whitlow has spoken globally on the importance of regenerative organic farming as an aspirational objective for global agriculture practices and as a necessity to mitigate climate change and cultivate social equity in the agricultural sector. In the last year, she has been invited to speak and participate in working groups to move climate-change-fighting policy forward, including The Aspen Institute’s Harvest Forum, Biofach (Germany), The Climate Collaborative, and UNSDGs alignment project with Certified B Corp, to name a few. When not on the road, she resides in Sonoma County, California tending to her micro-farm and an array of animals, promoting community-driven, local food systems.

TEDX SantaCruz curator, Speech Writer, Speaking Coach, & Event Producer

Irene Tsouprake

Deeply influenced by Riane Eisler’s work on partnership and Bhutan’s alternative economic paradigm of Gross National Happiness, I was inspired to help companies measure success beyond quarterly profit through creating & producing transformative corporate meetings and events. Aside from my day job, I have served as the licensee and curator for TEDXSantaCruz for nearly a decade. After curating a number of climate scientists, I found they could use help with creating more compelling narratives to articulate their work. In a world full of noise, narrative storytellers are essential to making the case for the urgency of acting on climate change. I’ve added mine to the many hands on deck… we’re going to need everyone.

Triple board certified physician, educator on the microbiome, founder of Seraphic Group & Farmer’s Footprint

Dr. Zach Bush MD

Zach Bush MD is a physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to health, disease, and food systems. Dr Zach founded *Seraphic Group and the non-profit Farmer’s Footprint to develop root-cause solutions for human and ecological health.  His passion for education reaches across many disciplines, including topics such as the role of soil and water ecosystems in human genomics, immunity, and gut/brain health. His education has highlighted the need for a radical departure from chemical farming and pharmacy, and his ongoing efforts are providing a path for consumers, farmers, and mega-industries to work together for a healthy future for people and planet. If you’re interested in learning more from Dr Zach, please visit www.zachbushmd.com.