I am a first generation farmer who started of my own business using sheep and beef cattle to graze the uncropped land of the local arable farmers eventually building up to 1200 acres of land. The next progression from this was to move into Dairy farming and to enter into a share farming agreement at Kingsclere estates. I am now milking 450 organic cows once a day on a pasture based system through a mobile milking parlor, one of only four in the whole of the United Kingdom.

I am currently undertaking a Nuffield scholarship exploring how to further progress up the farming ladder.

Plenary Speaker

Sharing the Regeneration

Jessica Chiartas is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the long-term impacts of agriculture on soil carbon and overall soil health with a unique focus on carbon at depth. She is interested in better understanding soil health/regenerative ag practices on a soil type, cropping system, climate specific basis and works with diverse multi-stakeholder groups towards the standardization of metrics and methodologies for use in policy initiatives, economic markets, and other incentive programs. She has a passion and drive for translating learnings from food and agricultural sciences into practice and believes the solutions to global grand challenges from human to environmental health lie in the way we manage and interact with our soils.

She serves on the Soil Science Society of America Science Policy Committee, the REGEN1 Executive Committee and Steering Board, and is the UC Davis partner member of the California Farm Demonstration Network, which brings together California Department of Food and Ag, UC Davis, UC Cooperative Extension, UC Ag and Natural Resources, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Resource Conservation Districts, and Farm Bureau to create a farmer-to-farmer network of discovery, support, and knowledge/information sharing. She also developed a website, a series of short videos and educational resources that highlight the connection between soil and life, in collaboration with USDA-NRCS.

• Article: Deep soil inventories reveal that impacts of cover crops and compost on soil carbon sequestration differ in surface and subsurface soils

Plenary Speaker

Mariela is the product of her Venezuelan birthplace, El Salvadoran roots, and Bay Area upbringing. For the past 15 years she has cultivated local economies and resilient food systems, and catalyzed new models of investment and economic opportunity that center and uplift BIPOC entrepreneurs, farmers, and community-based organizations. She co-founded Manzanita Capital Collective, a collective working to advance racial and economic justice in food and agriculture by shifting power and capital. Prior to Manzanita, Mariela was the Interim Executive Director of Mandela Partners – an Oakland based non-profit organization that works to increase access to healthy food, good jobs, and ownership opportunities. In a decade at Mandela Partners, Mariela seeded and grew economic development projects, wealth building initiatives, entrepreneurship programming, and non-extractive capital resources. Mariela has a wide breadth of experience in community rooted economic development, small business advising, alternative capital, financial planning, non-profit management, and much more.

Mariela is the chair of the Equitable Food Oriented Development Collaborative’s Community Investment Committee, on the Olamina Fund Community Advisory Committee, on Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Care Fund Advisory Committee, on California Farmlink’s Board of Directors, and part of the Firebrand Stewardship Trust.

Plenary Speaker

I was raised on 2,000 acres of conventionally tilled cotton, peanuts, and soybeans. There would also be a winter crop of wheat or TRT which would be winter grazed then harvested or baled. My degrees from NMSU include a BS in Mathematics, BS in Engineering Physics, and a Masters ABT in Electrical Engineering. In 2008 I began a career at Mosaic Potash Company in Carlsbad NM as an Electrical Engineer and Project Manager. In 2011, we bought an established conventionally managed pecan orchard and in 2013 began a journey of a regenerative, intensively managed, rotationally grazed, holistic lifestyle of farming. We currently run about 20 head of cattle in our 15 acre orchard and are attempting to add sheep to the herd for additional multi-species grazing.

Plenary Panel

Coley Burgess will share experiences conducting sheep silvopasture in New Mexico, and why silvopasture is a good tool to add to your toolkit.