Greenhorns Radio

Jeff Conant directs Friends of the Earth's international forests program, which campaigns to protect forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the economic and political drivers of forest destruction. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, Jeff ran communications and popular education efforts around climate and development justice with Global Justice Ecology Project, International Accountability Project, and other advocacy organizations, and co-authored A Community Guide to Environmental Health (Hesperian Health Guides, 2008), a comprehensive community education manual that covers issues from basic sanitation to big dams and from forestry to food sovereignty. The Community Guide has been translated into over a dozen languages.

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Berkshire native Maddie Elling and her partner Abe Hunrichs run Hosta Hill, a Berkshire-based business growing and making lacto-fermented vegetables. A lover of the outdoors, food, and dynamic work, Maddie spent four years after high school WWOOFing and wandering. After meeting Abe, they both settled in the Berkshires: dabbling in odd jobs and raising various animals and crops. Inspired by the Berkshire landscape and food scene they were eager to create a business of their own. They settled on growing vegetables and making fermented vegetables and tempeh. Maddie and Abe are in their 5th year of running Hosta Hill, distributing their products from the Berkshires to Boston and beyond. When not fermenting or doing office work, you can find Maddie staying busy outside, walking in the woods with her dog Oso, swimming, and scribbling on paper.

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Ben Dobson grew up in Hillsdale, New York, on a small organic farm and started his first agricultural business in 2001. After two years on his own, he joined forces with his father Ted Dobson and managed the fields at his salad and tomato farm in Sheffield, MA, from 2003 through 2006. Since then Ben has started, managed, and overseen the sale of two agricultural businesses: One of which, Atlantic Organics, founded in 2007, was the largest organic vegetable farm in the state of Maine. The other, a company called Locally Known LLC, founded in 2008, was a salad processing company that sold pre-packaged ready to eat salads to Whole Foods Market, Hannaford Bros. and Trader Joe's supermarkets in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic regions. In 2013, Ben joined Stone House Farm as the Organic Transition Manager, and in 2016 he became their Farm Manager. He planned and oversaw the implementation of an organic transition on the 2,200-acre Stone House Farm property, and developed a non-GMO feed and grain business to sell their grain. The farm is now expanding its grain operation to include organic grain from other farms in the region. Ben also heads Hudson Carbon: a research project conducting long term research across several sites on Stone House Farm and two neighboring farms. Hudson Carbon monitors the economic impacts and ecological effects of organic farming systems regarding carbon sequestration. Collaborators in this project include the Rodale Institute, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and Scenic Hudson. This winter Hudson Carbon will be launching a website with sections dedicated to farmers, science, and the public.

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Dorn Cox, PhD, is an agriculturist, and farmer working his 250-acre diversified organic family farm in Lee, New Hampshire. He is a co-founder of the FarmOS software platform, a founding member of the Farm Hack community, and is active in the national soil health movement to develop systems that improve global agricultural knowledge exchange and local regenerative production capacity. He has a PhD from the University of New Hampshire.

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Erica Frenay manages 35 acres of sheep, cattle, ducks, orchard, apiary, and high tunnels at Shelterbelt Farm near Ithaca, NY, with her husband and two young kids. She has also worked for the Cornell Small Farms Program for 11 years, co-founding the Northeast Beginning Farmer Project in 2006. She is a certified educator of Holistic Management and has completed permaculture design training, both of which have informed the design and management of her farm. She is passionate about connecting people to soil. And about playing the upright bass.

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Amanda Swinimer completed her BSc+ at Dalhousie University with an advanced major in Marine Biology and a minor in Oceanography. Amanda furthered her education by apprenticing for two years with a wise herbal teacher, Bernice Woolham, and studying with the ‘Kelp Doctor’, Dr. Louis Druehl. Her deep love of the ocean and the rainforest brought her to the west coast of Vancouver Island where she started her own business, Dakini Tidal Wilds, in 2003. For 15 years, Amanda has been sustainably harvesting, by hand, edible seaweeds, wild herbs and crafting products from these wild gifts. For most of these years, she has been sharing her passion for the wild gifts of our coastline with many people through a variety of hands-on teaching methods and with a focus of sustainability and respect for our rare coast. She has taught at the University of Victoria, Bamfield Marine Science Center, Royal Roads University, public schools and through private venues.

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Graison S. Gill is the owner of Bellegarde, a commercial bakery and stone mill in New Orleans bound to local ingredients, heritage, and flavor. He has been baking professionally for eight years and was trained at the San Francisco Baking Institute under Michel Suas, Mac McConnell, Mike Zakowski, and Frank Sally.

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Alexandra Hudson is a holistic chef, clinical herbalist, and regenerative food system advocate. In 2013 Alexandra founded Kaleidoscope Foods, a California Bay Area-based producer of bone broth infused kale chips, to provide deep on-the-go high integrity nutrition to her community. Alexandra is committed to weaving a food system that regenerates at every step of the process, from the vibrancy of the soil to the health of her customers.

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Jonny leads Kiva's work to reach financially excluded and socially impactful small business owners, artisans and farmers in the United States with 0% interest loans. He first came to Kiva in 2009 as a volunteer, and joined full-time in 2011 to lead the Kiva U.S. team. Jonny graduated with a degree in History from the University of Cambridge. He is married to Ali, who he met at Kiva, and a few weeks ago he became the proud father of Felicity Grace Price!

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Becky Brand, of Brandmoore Farm, joins today's episode of Greenhorns Radio. Becky grew up in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and later attended University of New Hampshire– landing her on the New Hampshire Seacoast. After studying Environmental Horticulture at UNH, she worked in Massachusetts at Appleton Farms and New Hampshire at Meadow’s Mirth where she continued to learn about organic and sustainable farming practices. Becky and her husband Phil Brand started Brandmoore Farm in 2012. Brandmoore Farm is a diverse, organic farm with a focus on cow dairy and vegetables. Becky and Phil have a nearly one-year-old baby named Thomas, a dog called Ernie, and a cat named Mimi.

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