Dave Shields along with his wife Ginger and children operate Pastured Life Farm in O’Brien Florida. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Dave’s first career was in IT & Network Services, culminating in the building and operation of a data center and network infrastructure & security consulting businesses.

After growing tired of the corporate hustle, with no agrarian background, in 2007, Dave and his wife decided to relocate their family to the rural farmlands of Florida. For the first couple of years, Dave and his family embarked upon many animal operations while Dave telecommuted to work.

After years of management, and through the careful implementation of their pastured poultry program, Pastured Life Farm now produces a wide variety of pasture-based proteins. Today, their farm provides direct farm to consumer products to thousands of customers in Florida.​

Plenary Speaker

Adding Layers to the Ranch

There are many benefits to adding laying hens to your farm or ranch, from the fertility and disturbance imparted to your land to the valuable marketable products they produce. Reach a wider range of customers through a highly consumable product to generate more recurring sales of your other products.

Addressing the fundamentals of managing pastured laying hens, including feed and nutrition, portable housing solutions, and health to unlock a whole new revenue stream for your business.

Adolfo Alzuphar is Young Farmer’s Field Director. He grew up in Haiti. He now lives in Black Mountain, NC, where he and his partner sow seeds and community.

Plenary Speaker

Innovation and Moving the Needle Forward

As stakeholders in a democracy with around 161 million people registered to vote, pushing any issue forward begs us to ask what the best way for going about it is. In a 161 million person democracy, organizations embrace mass media and technologies able to communicate and build bases widely. As a national organization informed and seasoned in building bases, we not only want to communicate and build bases widely, but also build resilient bases, from whom strong leaders can emerge. How does one do this with social media and mass media technology? Finally, at Young Farmers we believe in innovative policies that speak to a 161 million person democracy, and in a culture to ground this work in, a culture that can host such an effort.

Dan Probert
Cattle Rancher, Lightning Bolt Cattle Co.
Country Natural Regenerative Ranching Director
Dan Probert has spent his entire life in the Cattle Ranching business. Growing up on a ranch in Eastern Oregon, Dan moved to the central coast of California and started his own ranching enterprise in 1982. Dan moved back to Eastern Oregon in 1994 where he now ranches near Joseph Oregon. Dan also manages the resources on cow/calf and yearling operations in central Oregon and Washington.
The past 25 years Dan has been involved with the Country Natural Beef Cooperative first as a member then as its Production coordinator and served as its Executive Director for 5 years. Dan currently holds the title of Regenerative Ranching Director for Country Natural Beef. CNB is a cooperative of family ranches that has been in existence since 1986. Currently CNB is 100 members strong and markets 65,000 animals per year to companies like Whole Foods, New Seasons Markets, and Sysco. Dan also was on the board of the Global Animal Partnership animal welfare board for 10 years.
Currently, Dan is working with Country Natural Beef ranchers, Sustainable Northwest and Northway Ranch Services to build and implement a regenerative ranching program that will involve more than 100 ranchers across the west. The program seeks to bring sustainable ranching practices to the forefront and document the continued success of regenerative ranching practices implemented on their lands.

Plenary Speaker

Partnership on the Prairie

The focus of the presentation will be to talk about our collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, Country Natural Beef, Sustainable Northwest and other groups that we work with to acheive mutual outcomes on our ranch onthe Zumwalt Prairie. Also highlighting the good work that Country Natural Beef is doing beyond our ranch in working with over 90 ranches in the west to create a regenerative program that focuses on continuous improvement.

Dr. Lundgren is an agroecologist, Executive Director of Ecdysis Foundation, and CEO for Blue Dasher Farm. Lundgren’s research and education programs are helping applied science evolve in ways that foster the evolution of a regenerative food system. One of his priorities is to re-envision how science is conducted to help fuel a revolution in regenerative agriculture. He regularly interacts with the public and farmers around the world regarding ecologically intensive farming and how diversity fuels the resilience and productivity of an agroecosystem and rural communities.

Publications:

https://f1000research.com/articles/10-115
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.664359/full
https://peerj.com/articles/4428/https://www.bluedasher.farm/blog
https://youtu.be/K9blVHtybJQ?si=E5ipeGHrB8XWIKel
https://youtu.be/_8O1dx5TdXI?si=_yw_zRHmlnxrKady

Plenary Speaker

Changing the paradigm of science to foster the evolution of a regenerative food system

Success stories that show the promise of regenerative agriculture are too easily dismissed by critics, and empirical assessments of this style of farming is needed. To this end, we developed the 1000 Farms Initiative, a continental scale research project aimed at testing whether regenerative agriculture works no matter what you grow or where you grow it, and figuring out the optimal strategies for transitioning to these systems. The project is totally unique in that it is relationship intensive, farmer-driven, systems-level, and uses tested harmonized methods to cross geographic and food system boundaries that typically hamstring agriculture science. The data from 750 farms is in and shows the value of regenerative food systems in combatting climate change, reversing desertification, increasing biodiversity, and reducing pollution, all while healing the rural fabric of our society.

Stephanie and Hayley Painter are sisters and Co-Founder/Co-CEOs of Painterland Sisters, an organic skyr yogurt brand. They grew up in the rolling hills of Northern Pennsylvania on their family’s fourth-generation regenerative organic dairy farm. The sisters proudly represent Pennsylvania agriculture and are enthusiastic about being a voice for farmers worldwide. Their yogurt is made with milk from their family’s farm in Westfield, PA, and a handful of other farmers in Tioga County and the surrounding area.

As fellow advocates for grazing cattle, family farming, and connecting consumers to the source of their food, the sisters are humbled to be named “Forbes 30 under 30″, “Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year” for Organic Night Out, and “SBA’s Eastern Pennsylvania’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year”.

Plenary Speakers

Ed Roberson is a Colorado-based conservationist and creator of Mountain & Prairie, a top-ranked podcast featuring long-form interviews with innovators of the American West.

Since its first episode in early 2016, Mountain & Prairie has gone on to be recognized by the Aspen Institute, Patagonia, Apple Podcasts, MeatEater, The Nature Conservancy, Tompkins Conservation, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, The Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, High Country News, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Montana Governor’s Office, and more.

Ed’s career has focused on land, water, and conservation for nearly two decades, primarily in the American West. He served as Conservation Director at Palmer Land Conservancy for four years, leading the organization’s cutting-edge water conservation efforts in southeastern Colorado. Prior to Palmer, he was a ranch broker and worked extensively throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. He has also served on boards and committees for a wide range of conservation organizations in Colorado.

Ed holds a BA in economics and an MBA with a concentration in finance, both from Wake Forest University. He is also a proud graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Away from work, Ed is a committed husband, father of two young girls, voracious reader, comically slow ultrarunner, blundering Brazilian jiu-jitsu player, and devotee of the Strenuous Life.

Plenary Panel Moderator/ Roundtable Host