Cole Bush

Cole Bush is the founder and owner of Shepherdess Holistic Hides and Shepherdess Land and Livestock, a prescribed grazing business based in Ojai, California.Cole is a practitioner, educator, and consultant in the fields of climate-beneficial agriculture, land stewardship, and prescribed grazing. With over a decade of experience in the field, Cole has developed and managed the treatment of thousands of acres on private and public lands using prescribed grazing with commercial-scale herds of sheep and goats as an ecosystem service for ecological enhancement and fire hazard reduction throughout California. She is passionate about business and is dedicated to training new entrepreneurs and practitioners in the field, and loves providing consultation and technical assistance services for emerging graziers and land stewards.

Co-facilitator Olivia Tincani is a food and agriculture business educator and advisor with over 20 years of experience in the field. Olivia Tincani & Co. provides business, financial, strategic planning, and leadership training for small-scale independent farm businesses and the institutions that serve them. She has specific expertise in entrepreneurial empowerment, program and curriculum design, strategic visioning, facilitation, livestock businesses and whole animal supply chains, and community building. An ambitious spirit infuses her teaching and advising, inspired by her personal entrepreneurial endeavors. She is co-founder of Grazing School of the West

Video: “Stewards of the Land” – American Lamb Board
White Paper: “Prescribed Herbivory for Vegetation Treatment Projects” – California Range Management Advisory Committee
Interview: “Grazing for Good”, Soil Centric
Photo Editorial by Todd Selby

Roundtable Facilitator

Growing Graziers: Improving a Labor Force for Grazing Work

This round table invites both employees and employers in the grazing community to gather to share experiences, hardships, success stories, and future vision in hopes of coming away with practical ideas for how businesses, policy makers, and service organizations can assist to increase and improve the grazier labor force, in all roles. We imagine equitable sharing between employer, employee, service providers, and/or hopeful graziers to dialogue on the following topics:
– examples of policy affecting labor on hyperlocal, regional, state and national lens
– shared expressions of hardships
– exchange of success stories
– volunteer culture: why unpaid labor doesn’t work
– apprentices/interns vs. employees
– H2A storytelling: pros, cons, and everything in between
– brainstorming skill sets needed to cultivate solid entry-level employees in grazing businesses, with a follow-up goal to then pass ideas on to organizations and entities to influence their program and initiative development

Come ready to openly share your frustrations, needs, and challenges…and jointly strategize solutions. Remember that this is a round table discussion – powered by YOUR experience and knowledge, so be ready to dialogue!

Plenary Speaker 2023

Growing Graziers: Shepherding a new-generation of agrarians into viable vocations in land stewardship, public safety, and vital food and fibersheds

Through her own journey to create a viable career and livelihood in regenerative agriculture and land management, Cole will share how prescribed grazing sheep and goats in the west is opening pathways for next-generation agrarians seeking impactful work that addresses climate, public safety, vital food and fibersheds, and social change. Through innovative stacked enterprise business models and collaborative partnerships between businesses and non-profit organizations, Cole is “growing graziers” by creating on-the-job training opportunities that will ready individuals to pursue their own entrepreneurial journeys or enter a workforce requiring skills and knowledge only obtained through experience. In a dedication to stacking enterprises and illuminating the wide diversity of opportunity that four legged ruminants offer, Cole will also share how her hide business, Shepherdess Holistic Hides places an additional value on a normally forgotten waste product, while telling the story of animal symbiosis with western range land management.