Neil Thapar (he/him) is Co-Director of Minnow. Neil’s role includes using his legal background to co-create legal entities for community ownership of land and financial resources that are democratic and participatory. Neil emphasizes collective action and cooperation as cornerstones in every project or policy he participates in. Prior to Minnow, Neil was the Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Food and Farm Program Director. Outside of Minnow, Neil is a parent member of a childcare cooperative for families of color in Oakland and he organizes with the Community Democracy Project to bring participatory budgeting, through a People’s Budget, to the City of Oakland where he lives.

About Minnow: Minnow shapes a world where all beings can experience joy and belonging with reverence for the land. Such conditions repair the harms of settler colonialism that persist under capitalism and white supremacy. By securing land tenure for California’s farmers of color and indigenous communities, Minnow supports the heritage and foodways of those most affected by state-sponsored dispossession. Through democratic ownership of land and food systems, colonized peoples can thrive in their cultural practices while contributing proven solutions to climate change.

Article: CivilEats: An Enormous Land Transition is Underway. Here’s How to Make it Just.

Plenary Speaker

Jason Baldes received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Land Resources & Environmental Sciences from Montana State University where he focused on Tribal Bison Restoration. Currently, in his capacity as Tribal Buffalo Program Manager for the National Wildlife Federation’s Tribal Partnerships Program, he established resolution based support to restore over 100 conservation buffalo to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation since 2016. Jason sits on the board of directors for the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council, board of trustees for the Conservation Lands Foundation, and the environmental commission of the Congress of Nations & States. He is the executive director of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, and adjunct professor at Central Wyoming College and Wind River Tribal College. Jason is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and manages the Tribes’ herd of 77 buffalo.

Plenary Panel

Tribal Bison Restoration-Land Rematriation and Reconciliation

Nina is a second year apprentice with Quivira’s NAP program. She spent last season learning how to graze a grass finishing beef herd on the Western slope of Colorado. The 2022 season she has spent diving deeper into range ecology, monitoring, and grazing for wildlife habitat in Southern Colorado. Nina fell in love with food production, ecology, and cooking while in college in Vermont. She then set out to work on farms throughout the US and the world, learning various methods of production and scales. Her love for working with animals and an interest in systems and processes lead her to working in the realm of ranching through the NAP program. She is excited about travel, stockmanship and learning the processes that shape landscapes and community based around food production.

Plenary Panel

Young Agrarians: Living the Questions Now & Seeking Bold Solutions & NAP Graduation Ceremony

I grew up in St. Louis Missouri but have always tried to spend most of my time outdoors climbing, camping, hiking and dreaming about making a livelihood in a more open space than the city. My family has a some what abandoned ranch in the panhandle of Texas and it has always been a dream of mine to live, work and steward that ranch. The only problem was that I didn’t have the first idea how to make that happen. Until, my wife Leah found out about the New Agrarian Program. In March of 2021 we left everything we had and everyone we knew in St. Louis to move to a 350sq foot tiny home on the Moe Ranch in Two Dot, Montana. Since the moment we arrived my life has been constantly evolving into something I used to dream about. The community we engage with, the land we get to help steward and our mentor Shane Moe have and will continue to change how I look at the world for years to come!

Plenary Panel

Young Agrarians: Living the Questions Now & Seeking Bold Solutions & NAP Graduation Ceremony