Greg Hart farms 1500 acres in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. He works on the property with his wife and 3 young children, as well as 3 other workers and various WWOOFers from all around the world. The Harts practise regenerative agriculture and try to raise awareness about the urgent need to transition to a food production system based on nature that heals the earth and society.

Erika Rumbley is the Co-Founder and Director of The New Garden Society (TNGS). Each year The New Garden Society trains 100+ incarcerated students in the art and science of plants, building a bridge from Greater-Boston prisons and youth detention facilities to local careers in organic land care. Erika is also the Greenhouse Manager at Langwater Farm, a 50-acre, certified organic vegetable, fruit, flower and herb farm south of Boston. Her most formative experiences as an adult educator include her time with Southside Community Land Trust, The Trustees of Reservations, and growing food and flowers alongside students in prison gardens outside of Boston. A North Carolina native, Erika has farmed and found her home in southern New England for over a decade.

Ildi Carlisle-Cummins is Director of the Cal Ag Roots Project at the California Institute for Rural Studies. Cal Ag Roots puts historical roots under current California food and farming change movements by telling the story of California agricultural development in innovative, useful, and relevant ways. There is deep knowledge about the structures, driving forces, and key moments that have shaped California's food system among recognized experts; and those who have participated in the creation of CA farming, but this knowledge doesn't always inform food movement work. Cal Ag Roots shares stories from this wide range of people, opening new lines of communication among them.

Robert Olivier, founder of GrubTubs, Inc. invents and develops all aspects of insect based technologies, from conceptual design work to prototyping and final fabrication. Currently he is engineering a bioconversion facility in Austin, TX, to transform food waste into animal feed. Olivier holds a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences and business administration from Southern Methodist University. He received the Departmental Academic Excellence Award in Geological Sciences upon graduation.

Marie Hoff founded Capella Grazing Project in 2013. Using rare, heritage breed Ouessant sheep, she grazes in such unlikely spots as vineyards, orchards, on cover crop at local farms, and for landowners seeking holistic lawn-mowing services. In this unconventional manner of ranching, she blends ancient shepherding with modern day integrated agricultural and economic systems, stewarding both landscape and livestock genetics.

Locky Catron graduated from Iowa State University with an Agricultural Business degree and joined the three-person Cleber, LLC, team in Alabama. Her experiences working both in Big Ag and on organic farms led her to have a passion for regional food systems and a more diversified agriculture. Cleber's business model is one that encourages local/regional manufacturing by using an open system design approach. Their first piece of equipment is the Oggun Tractor - a simple, versatile tractor inspired by the Allis Chalmers G and made using off-the-shelf components. The focus is appropriateness of scale and affordability.

Tom Baldwin is the Farm Director of Ulua Palms Farm and Nursery in Makawo, HI. A permaculture designer and nurseryman, he is currently engaged in the development of a 5-acre homestead property on Maui in addition to maintaining an 18-acre farm on Big Island. This includes the current planting of a collection of roughly 50 avocado varieties, and an extensive renovation of an old family homestead built in 1906. Tom stewards an extensive collection of plants, including a repository of rare fruit and nuts. He also has a special interest in cacti.

Based in Kentucky and North Carolina, Sara Day Evans works through Accelerating Appalachia to advance the regenerative economy for North America's most diverse foodshed: the Appalachian region. She's a program developer, social entrepreneur, and living bridge who for over 20 years has delivered powerful impact through strong leadership, creativity, and collaboration. Launching Accelerating Appalachia was borne out of a variety of circumstances: a natural evolution of her ongoing commitment to people, place and prosperity in Appalachia; conversations with leaders in social enterprise and impact investing, the natural abundance and beauty of Appalachia; her connection to place as a 6th generation Kentuckian; her service to distressed communities in Appalachia to help rebuild the loss of their furniture, textile, and farming economies while with the NC Department of Commerce; her impactful work with Kentucky's Environmental Protection Cabinet; and the deep influence of her longtime Kentucky friends, bell hooks and Wendell Berry, and her activist, physicist parents and inspiring children. A hydrogeologist, community planner, entrepreneur, former truck driver, waitress, maid, and woodworker, Sara Day is also an accomplished musician, writer and poet.

Miles Teitge took his first steps in the old growth forests of Vashon Island, WA, and was transplanted to the Idaho high mountain desert in 1983. Graduating from the Community School, he took up surfing in Kauai, trekked India, and biked across the U.S. to study Anthroposophy for a year at Camphill Village in Copake, NY. This Rudolph Steiner inspired community serves those with special needs, and is also the home of Turtle Tree Seed, a producer of biodynamic seeds. He earned a Bachelor's degree in education at Antioch University, while volunteering at the Seattle Tilth Children's Garden. Miles interned at the Herb Pharm in Williams, OR, and continued his education at Seed School (with local legend Bill McDorman), and the Fungi Perfecti mushroom cultivation course (with visionary Paul Stamets). He joined The Mountain School shortly after it opened, inspired to learn and teach principles of permaculture and the gardening arts; be it cultivating vegetables, gathering medicinal herbs, grafting trees, laying out hugelkultur beds, bee-tending, greenhouse design, poultry care, humane composting, worm wrangling or the like, there is a lifetime of learning on this path! He and Sweet Clover teacher, Jessica Banks, are the proud parents of SMS student Edyn Crow Teitge. Miles is delighted to continue with the Syringa Mountain School's Sustainability Arts program and plans to share his deep reverence for the natural world, plant fruit for future generations, and grow the largest watermelon the Wood River Valley has ever seen in 2017!

Mike Bologna, CEO of Green Lion Partners, is a decisive and personable leader with a comprehensive background in supply chain technology consulting, process analysis, and operational strategy. Using this experience, Mike focuses on ensuring organizational success by improving efficiencies, minimizing waste, and bringing socially conscious processes to the forefront. Green Lion Partners is a Denver, CO based business strategy firm focused on early stage development in the regulated cannabis industry.

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.