EcoAg U Online

Gary Zimmer was raised on a dairy farm in northeastern Wisconsin. He received training in dairy nutrition, earning a bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii (1970). After achieving his educational goals, he spent the next five years teaching a farm operation and management course at Winona Area Technical Institute, Winona, Minnesota. In addition to nutrition, he was required to teach courses in crops, soils and farm finance. His approach to teaching included outside speakers, on-farm projects, field trips and much study. He has always asked questions and looked at many ways of farming with an open mind. This led him to discover The Albrecht Papers, Brookside consulting training, work as a private consultant in southeastern Minnesota, and ultimately to promote a better understanding and appreciation of biological farming.

Mark Shepard is a permaculture designer, agroforester and ecological farming consultant and is the author Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He and his family have transformed a typical 100-acre row-crop dairy farm into a permaculture-based perennial-agricultural ecosystem using oak savannah, successional-brushland and Eastern woodlands as the ecological models. The result is one of the first and finest farm-scale models of permaculture in the United States. Their farm features chestnut, hazelnut and fruit trees, a variety of other fruits and vegetables, and chickens, ducks, pigs and other animals. He has lectured worldwide and consults with growers around the world including teaching permaculture techniques in sub-Saharan Africa. Upper Midwest organic farmers will recognize him as the banjo player in the band Synister Dane.

Doug Fine is a solar-powered goat herder, comedic investigative journalist, bestselling author, and pioneer voice in regenerative farming, including cannabis/hemp. He has cultivated hemp for food and seed-building in four US states and teaches a Sterling College hemp class in Vermont. In addition, he is an award-winning culture and climate correspondent from five continents (for NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among others). His books include American Hemp Farmer, Hemp Bound, Too High to Fail, Farewell, My Subaru (a Boston Globe Bestseller available in two Chinese dialects), Not Really An Alaskan Mountain Man, and First Legal Harvest, a monograph that was printed on hemp paper. Willie Nelson calls Doug’s work “a blueprint for the America of the future.” The Washington Post says, “Fine is a storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams.” A website of Doug’s print and radio work, United Nations testimony, television appearances and TED Talk is at dougfine.com. Social media: @organiccowboy.