Julie Sullivan was born and raised in California. After working as an actor, arts administrator, and starting a private progressive preschool in Seattle, she earned her Master’s in Environmental Education and subsequently taught interdisciplinary environmental education at both undergraduate and graduate levels for the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University. She spent those years challenging students to look beyond surface conflicts between environmentalism and agriculture, and to see the common values and goals shared by both points of view. After over a decade living outside teaching for the Expedition, Julie met and joined George Whitten at the ranch in 2001 on his certified organic, grass-finished cattle ranch. The ranch is committed to restorative practices that result in soil health, functioning grassland ecosystems, and viable small scale ranching. Julie and George and the founding mentors of the Quivira Coalition New Agrarian Program and have been mentors since its inception. Julie also serves as Mentor Support and Training for the New Agrarian Program. She is fiercely dedicated to the next generation of agrarians, fully functioning ecosystems and creative solutions to the interaction of humans with their planet.

Roundtable Facilitator

Apart From to A Part Of: Creating Connection in Rural Ag Communities

Facilitated by Quivira’s New Agrarian Program staff Julie Sullivan and Luka Samson. Contributors include New Agrarian Program Apprentices and Alumni.
Rural communities often benefit from enthusiastic newcomers arriving to help out on farms and ranches, thus revitalizing land and society. Yet newcomers often feel unwelcome or unsure of how to become part of their new place. Beginning agrarians often relocate frequently for years; what helps build community in spite of transiency? Locals usually want to see a person stick around a few years before investing in them, while newcomers want to share their ideas and skills right away. Join us as we explore what NAP alumni and apprentices have tried in their various communities, share your own ideas, and consider what locals could do to better support new agrarians eager to become part of, and contribute to, their new home town.

April Parms Jones is originally from Akron, Ohio and advocates for her community as part of the food justice, water access and the food sovereignty movement. She is passionate about community gardens, farmer markets and creating a just food system. She is a writer, public speaker, consultant, blogger, recipe developer, book reviewer, event planner and more. She contributes content to her blog Frolicking Americana, and to national and international magazines, Mother Earth, Country Lore, The Natural Farmer, Grit, Growing for Market, Ark Republic, Ecoparent Magazine, Growers and Co., Farmers Market Coalition writer, The Agrarian Trust, Cornucopia Institute and Farmer’s Market Coalition, and is an Emerging Leader in food and agriculture nominee.

Workshop Presenter

Storytelling, Marketing and Cultural Food Ways 

Join April Jones, founder of the Pinehurst Farmers Market and work group member for the “Anti-Racist Farmers Market Toolkit“. At this workshop, April will help producers and others involved in agricultural marketing ground their marketing efforts in anti-racism and equity through awareness and connection to cultural foodways and practices that honor numerous cultural traditions in food. She’ll help participants think through how they market and tell their story. Additionally, there will be chance for small-group discussions to hear from one another and how you currently market and how you hope to market in the future.

Torri Estrada is Executive Director at the Carbon Cycle Institute and directs its policy and climate justice work. Torri has worked to advance solutions to social and environmental justice, climate, and environmental issues for over thirty years. Previously, Torri was program director at the Marin Community Foundation, where he managed the Foundation’s environmental grantmaking program and climate change initiative. He was also a program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program, managing its environmental justice and civil rights portfolios. Torri was the co-founder and a senior policy fellow with the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; Torri served as Program Director at Urban Habitat and directed its Brownfields and Community Revitalization Project and co-developed its Leadership Development Program. Torri holds an MS in Environmental Sociology and Policy (with environmental justice emphasis) from the University of Michigan, and a joint BS/BA degree in Environmental Science and Policy and Ecological Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Plenary Panel

Resilience Through Catastrophe: Preparation for and Recovery from Climate Disasters

Hear from panelists about how producers and technical service providers can prepare for and recover from climate disasters like wildfire through building soil health, holistic management, and unique partnerships and collaborations. We’ll hear perspectives from New Mexico, California and Australia, including challenges and success stories, as we address local climate and natural disaster catastrophes via local and global perspectives.

Bobby L. Wilson, owner of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (MAUF), shares a mission and a vision that focuses on agricultural education and recruitment, access to locally grown fresh food for marginalized and underserved communities, youth socio-emotional development, increasing representation in the sciences of those who historically have been underrepresented, and providing a community and therapeutic gardening program for seniors. Bobby is a member of the Urban Agriculture Innovative Production Federal Advisory Committee.  He recently served as a first-time Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on a national research project, the NOISE Project, in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Celebrate Urban Birds, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is co-author of several publications, including Understanding the Impact of Equitable Collaborations between Science Institutions and Community-Based Organizations: Improving Science through Community-Led Research, and is a 2022 Featured CNN Hero.
Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (MAUF) is a 501(c)3 organization that is committed to improving the quality of life for residents in College Park, GA, specifically, and throughout Metro Atlanta. For the past thirteen years, Bobby L. Wilson has run a successful certified naturally grown urban farm operation in the city of College Park. 

June 2022 issue of BioScience  
Meaningful Collaborations  
Partnerships for Impact

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Plenary Speaker

Sustainability and Responsible Stewardship: Preserving a Legacy of Clean Air, Clean Water, and Clean Soil for the Generations that Follow

Bobby L. Wilson is a veteran farmer of more than 30 years.  He shares his journey of teaching marginalized and underserved communities to feed themselves well using sustainable practices and responsible stewardship on a 5-acre certified naturally grown farm operation.  Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (MAUF) is an informal educational STEM area that promotes the FUNdamentals of research to motivate and inspire the next generation to not only see themselves in the sciences, but to pursue agricultural education and careers in agricultural science.

Paula Garcia is Executive Director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, a statewide grassroots organization founded in 1990.  Its mission is to protect water and irrigated land through “acequias” which are community operated irrigation systems designed to share water for agriculture. She lives in Mora where she continues to operate an intergenerational ranch with her family.

Paula is former chair of the Mora County Commission, during which she also served as President of the New Mexico Association of Counties. She is former chair of the USDA Minority Farmers Advisory Committee, appointed by Secretary Vilsack. Currently, she serves as an appointee to the Interstate Stream Commission and the State Land Trust Advisory Board.

In her years of service to the NMAA, acequias have built a movement around the principle that “el agua es vida – water is life” with major achievements in water policy, water governance, and agricultural projects. Most recently, her focus has been on disaster response and recover following the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire, the largest wildfire in New Mexico history.

Publications:

Chapter 3, Acequia Waters: Community Resource or Commodity? Water for the People, Acequia Heritage of New Mexico in a Global Context, Editors Enrique Lamadrid and Jose Rivera, University of New Mexico Press, 2022.

Plenary Panel

Resilience through catastrophe: preparation for and recovery from climate disasters