"Safe, Local, Organic: Building a Healthy Food Economy"
December 4-6, 2009 at the Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC

speaker bios

Shiloh Avery and Jason Roehrig, Tumbling Shoals Farm
Shiloh Avery and Jason Roehrig have farmed in North Carolina since 2003 and operated Tumbling Shoals Farm in Millers Creek for the past two seasons.  They market their produce and cut flowers in Boone, Hickory, and Wilkesboro.  

Patryk Battle, Sparkling Earth Farm
Patryk Battle is a well-known farmer, head  gardener of the Mountain Air Community Organic Garden  and WCQS  panelist.   Pat writes and speaks at every opportunity about our vital connection with the microbial community . He passionately believes we will  thrive by aligning ourselves with natural systems rather than deluding ourselves that  we can reinvent, control  or dominate them.

Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells, Fickle Creek Farm
Ben Bergman and Noah Ranells are co-owners of Fickle Creek Farm.  Noah is Agricultural Economic Development Officer for Orange County, NC.  Ben works full-time at Fickle Creek; previously he taught at NCSU.

Andrew Branan, NC Farm Transition Network
Andrew Branan operates the North Carolina Farm Transition Network, developing educational programs, resources and assistance for farmers, landowners and their professional advisors related to decisions that keep land in agriculture for the next generation.  He is an attorney and member of the state bars of North Carolina and Virginia.   

Kari Brayman, CFSA Communications Director
Kari Brayman is the Communications Director for CFSA.  She is a  devoted user of new communication technology despite living the rural backwoods life.  She currently lives in Black Mountain with her family.  

Freda Butner, NC Dept. Ag & Consumer Services
Freda Butner, RD LDN has dual degrees in nutrition and in child development.  Her passion is lifestyle management by influencing wellness through local food.  Working with farmers markets, she helped establish several hospital markets in NC, including the Duke Farmers’ Market. She is past chair of the NC Fruits & Veggies Nutrition Coalition and currently serves as the inaugural chair of the Farms, Gardens and Nutrition Advisory Council of the six-county Inter-Faith Food Shuttle programs.       

Gerry Cohn, Organic Valley
Gerry Cohn is the SE Region Pool Coordinator with CROPP Cooperative/Organic Valley, the largest organic farmer-owned coop in North America.  He serves as the primary liaison between the coop, headquartered in LaFarge, WI, and the nine farm families in the Southeast. As liaison he provides assistance in production, animal health, economic, and quality issues.  Previously, Gerry worked with RAFI-USA and American Farmland Trust.  He has helped several counties with local ag development and farmland preservation plans.  Gerry operates Matzah Rising Farm, a diversified farm in Snow Camp that produces vegetables, timber, and wildlife habitat.

Tradd Cotter, Mushroom Mountain
Tradd Cotter founded Mushroom Mountain in 1996.  Currently, Tradd and Olga Katic’s 8-acre research farm and tissue culture laboratory near Clemson, SC focuses on creating spawn and kits for growers, teachers, and researchers.  They maintain over fifty species of edible and medicinal mushrooms and are constantly isolating new strains from our native forests. Their goals are to develop environmentally sensitive farming practices for future generations, coupling sustainability with an economically viable model for mushroom farms at home and world-wide.

Nancy Creamer, Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS).
Nancy is a professor in the Department of Horticultural Science and the Director of CEFS.  The Center is a 2000 acre facility whose mission is to develop and promote sustainable food and farming systems. Creamer's area of specialization includes farming systems research, organic production systems, and community-based sustainable local food systems. She led the statewide Farm to Fork process in 2008-2009.

Jennifer Curtis, NC Choices & CEFS
Jennifer Curtis has been working in the field of sustainable agriculture for the past 20 years and is currently a consultant to the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.  As Project Director of their NC Choices initiative, Jennifer is working to develop viable local meat value chains for pasture-based livestock and poultry producers in North Carolina.  Actively involved in CEFS Farm-to-Fork initiative, Jennifer is compiling the State Action Guide for Building Sustainable Local Food Economy in North Carolina.

Jeanine Davis, NCSU
Jeanine is a horticulturist with NC State University in Mills River.  For over 20 years, her program has been focused on keeping farming profitable by helping farmers diversify into new crops and organic agriculture.  She is the coauthor of the book “Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and Other Woodland Medicinals”.

Spence Dickinson, Spence's Educational Farm
Spence Dickinson was born on a farm and has gardened and worked with animals his whole life. He has been working with children and teaching for over 45 year.  Twenty years ago he transformed his 35 acre farm in Chapel Hill, NC into a community educational farm, serving over 10,000 children and families to date. 

Bill Dow, Ayrshire Farm
Bill Dow is an experienced organic farmer and has been farming at Ayrshire Farm for decades.  He helped to start the Carrboro Farmers Market and is a former Board Chair of CFSA.  He supplies produce to some of the area's top restaurants. 

Diane Ducharme, NCSU GAPs Program Coordinator  
Diane serves as NCSU Coordinator for Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) program with a background in production of fruits and vegetables and she holds a Masters in Plant Pathology.  She has directed the development of a comprehensive Fresh Produce Safety website,www.ncfreshproducesafety.org. She serves as co-chair of the NC Fresh Produce Safety Taskforce.

Julie Grossman, NCSU
Julie Grossman is the Assistant Professor of Soil Fertility and Management of Organic Cropping Systems at NC State University. Her research asks questions about legume cover crop management and rhizobia diversity in organic systems.  Julie is passionate about teaching and leads a course on sustainable soil management at NCSU.  

Andrew Gunther, Animal Welfare Approved
Andrew Gunther is program director for Animal Welfare Approved, a certification for independent, pasture-based family farmers. In his native England, Andrew pioneered the world's first organic poultry hatchery for chickens and ducks, and served as the organic voice within the UK's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) poultry working group. Andrew is currently part of the Texas State Board of Agriculture's organic advisory board and a member of the American Association of Agricultural scientists.

David Harper, Land in Common
David Harper founded Land In Common to assist landowners and community organizations in securing an affordable land base for sustainable farming, forestry, and housing.  He has 20 years of experience as a conservation professional, and has raised over $2 million toward protection of over 1,500 acres of farms and forests. 

Walter Harrill, Imladris Farm
Walter is a noted fruit grower and a frequent speaker on production techniques.  Imladris Farm is a sixth generation sustainable family farm in Fairview, NC.  The farm grows a variety of products, but focuses on raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.  www.imladrisfarm.com   

Stefan Hartmann, Black River Organic Farm
Stefan is an experienced organic grower, producing traditional and heirloom vegetables on a 16 acre certified organic farm 40 miles north of Wilmington. Stefan sells at farmers markets, wholesale and through a CSA.  He is a knowledgeable and popular trainer on commercial organic production.  www.blackriverorganicfarm.com

Claire Hermann, Come to the Table
Claire Hermann is the Come to the Table Project Coordinator and Communications and Outreach Associate at RAFI-USA. Come to the Table is a project of the Rural Life Committee of the North Carolina Council of Churches that works with people of faith to relieve hunger and support local farms in North Carolina. Claire holds a MA in Mass Communication from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BA from Scripps College.

Joe Hollis, Mountain Gardens
For the past 25 years, Joe has been creating a paradise garden in Western NC (Burnsville).  Joe has a deep and passionate knowledge of plants, especially medicinal herbs. He is a popular teacher, offering plant walks, garden tours and workshops. www.mountaingardensherbs.com

Christopher Hopkins, NCSU
Chris is a doctoral candidate in Forestry Economics and Outreach Associate in Forestry Extension at NCSU.  He is the founding member and lead developer of the torrefaction development project.  He has also worked on estimating biomass supply, sustainability and potentials for woody and other biomass resources in North Carolina.    

Frank Hyman, Cottage Garden Landscaping
Frank Hyman, a former organic farmer, has created beautiful and sustainable gardens in Durham for 17 years as the owner of Cottage Garden Landscaping. He studied horticulture and design at NC State University under the late JC Raulston (who was named one of the world’s top 25 horticulturists of all time by Horticulture magazine). His Mediterranean garden at the Mad Hatter restaurant won an award from Durham’s Appearance Commission. He’s created gardens that are drought-proof, deer-resistant, low maintenance, organic and just plain pretty. He has spoken on gardening at Duke Gardens, the JC Raulston Arboretum, UNC-G, the McLaughlin Garden (voted prettiest public garden in Maine) Tryon Palace and for garden clubs in Charlotte and Chapel Hill.   

Roland McReynolds, CFSA
Roland McReynolds, is the  Executive Director of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), based in Pittsboro, NC.  He is an attorney licensed to practice in North Carolina, and earned his law degree at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law. He has BA and BS degrees in History and Political Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and grew up on a farm in central Missouri. Roland spent almost 10 years in the legal publishing industry, and spent one year exploring local and sustainable food systems in Europe, before coming to work for CFSA. .  He currently serves on the North Carolina Certified Crop Advisors Board and the Advisory Committees for the North and South Carolina Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education programs.

Marty Mesh Florida Certified Organic Growers & Consumers, Inc. (FOG)
Marty is the Executive Director of FOG and its organic certification program, Quality Certification Services (QCS). He has over 20 years experience in the organic and sustainable agriculture movement. He serves on the boards of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG), the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, the Accredited Certifiers Association (ACA) and is a founding member of Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). He is also involved in just food labeling efforts and community food security in Florida. 

Emily Jackson, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project
Emily Jackson is the founder and director of ASAP’s Growing Minds Farm to School/Institution program.  Emily has steered ASAP into the national Farm to School arena and ASAP now serves as the Regional Lead Agency for the National Farm to School Network.  As Regional Lead, Emily coordinates Farm to School training and technical assistance, advocacy, and policy work for Western North Carolina and a six state area while working to shape national Farm to School policy.  She is currently directing a research project that is measuring the impact of Farm to School programming on children’s motivation to consume fresh fruits and vegetables and increase their overall interest in healthy, locally grown food as well as ASAP’s new Farm to Hospital project.  She is a former K-6 educator and farmer.

Rob Jones  
Rob is a radical educator and food activist based in the Triangle region of North Carolina.  In addition to being a Crop Mob organizer Rob works with Good Work, a community development and social entrepreneurship non-profit that does work across the state.


Tony Kleese, organic consultant
Tony has been working to create a southeastern organic food system since 1989.  He helped develop the USDA’s National Organic Standards and was the first Coordinator of the Sustainable Farming Program at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro, NC.  He has served in many roles for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), including Executive Director from 2000 to 2007, during which time he helped launch Eastern Carolina Organics.  He is currently co-owner of the Earthwise Company LLC, a community and agriculture development company, www.earthwiselife.com

Sandi Kronick    
Sandi Kronick is a founder and CEO of Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO.)  Prior to ECO, Sandi worked as the Local Food Coordinator for a dining co-op at Oberlin and consulted with Cleveland restaurants to help them set up sustainability programs.   Later, Sandi worked for CFSA, launching ECO in 2004. She oversees all business management activities, ensuring that ECO is growing toward its goals of making a positive impact for food and farms.

Rob Lamb, Forest Stewards
Rob Lamb is a Registered Forester and Executive Director of Forest Stewards, a nonprofit organization providing forestry services and forestry education to landowners in western NC.

Kathleen Lamont, Back to Basics
Former homesteader and practitioner of sustainable living practices, for the last 25 years Kathleen has milked a cow, made butter, grown magnificent organic gardens, composted, canned and dehydrated her food stores, baked bread, kept bees, raised laying hens, and has taught hundreds of homestead hopefuls how to do the same.  

Mary Lane, Divine Nourishment
Mary Lane has worked as a professional chef for over twenty-five years, graduated from Nam Singh’s Academy of 5 Element Nutrition, Eliot Cowan’s Plant Spirit Medicine and has a degree from the Clayton College of Nutrition. She teaches and provides personal consultations. Her book, Divine Nourishment/A Woman’s Sacred Journey with Food, draws upon the integration of her life’s journey.   

Jennifer Lapidus, CFSA Organic Bread Flour Project
Jennifer Lapidus is Project Coordinator of CFSA’s  NC Organic Bread Flour Project.  In her past life, she was owner, operator, and sole baker of Natural Bridge Bakery.  For fourteen years, she produced naturally-leavened breads in the Flemish tradition of desem baking, milling her flour in a stone-burr grist mill, and baking her breads in a massive wood-fire brick oven.  

Frank Louws, NCSU
Dr. Frank Louws is professor of Plant Pathology and manages a program of students, postdocs and others who do research and extension on the biology and management of strawberry and vegetable diseases. He and his wife Helen have 4 children and reside in Franklin County where they enjoy a large garden and the outdoors.     frank_louws@ncsu.edu

Scott Marlow, RAFI-USA
Scott Marlow is the Director of Farm Sustainability for the Rural Advancement Foundation International – USA in Pittsboro, NC. Scott’s directs RAFI-USA’s farm advocacy program providing in-depth financial counseling to farmers facing financial crises and natural disasters.  His work also focuses on assisting mid-scale farmers in making the transition to higher-value environmental markets.   

Chuck Marsh, Useful Plants Nursery
Chuck Marsh is an unrelenting advocate for the ecological culture shift called for by our times.  He’s an experienced and much sought after permaculture teacher, designer, consultant and strategist.  Chuck lives at Earthaven Ecovillage near Black Mountain, where he and his friends grow food and medicine plants at Useful Plants Nursery.        

Diana McCall, Black Mountain Community Garden
Diana McCall is the coordinator of the Black Mountain Community Garden and a lifelong gardener.  She supervises volunteers and leads college and school groups at the garden.  She is a chef and teaches at the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts and a mother of three.

Lynn Miller, Small Farmer's Journal
Lynn Miller has farmed and listened to farmers for four decades and his convictions have not wavered.  In his own words, "the future of agriculture rests with the small independent family farm.  The conditions today are perfect for a whole new farming culture."  Mr. Miller is an internationally-known writer and speaker and the founder and editor of Small Farmer's Journal, an award-winning international agrarian quarterly.  He is also the Vice President of the Small Farms Conservancy, a  non-profit with a mission to advocate, protect, sustain and inspire small farming worldwide.  Mr. Miller will talk about important small farm issues and specifically new and exciting ways to preserve farmland and small family farms.
www.smallfarmersjournal.com

Casey McKissick, Crooked Creek Farms
Casey  teaches Agriculture at a high school in Swannanoa and is co-owner and operator of Crooked Creek Farms and co-manager of Foothills Family Farms. Casey, with his wife Meredith and son Cash raise beef cattle, poultry, cut flowers and produce on 30 acres in Old Fort, NC.  

Steve Moore, NCSU
Steve works for NCSU at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), Goldsboro, NC.  He has researched and grown in high tunnels for over 20 years.
He was the past Director of the Center for Sustainable Living, Wilson College, PA. He is founder of the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources and Co-founder (with wife, Carol) of Harmony Essentials.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Ecology Action, Willits, CA.  His most contented and fulfilling times are spent in the soil growing food for his own family.

Mike Morris, National Center for Appropriate Technology
Mike leads the farm energy team at the National Center for Appropriate Technology and is a researcher and writer for ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. He has recently written on irrigation efficiency, energy usage in the food system, and controversies surrounding biofuels. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy.  

Bu Nygrens, Veritable Vegetable, San Francisco
Bu is the purchasing manager and second in charge at Veritable Vegetable, the country’s original organic produce distributor. She is a dynamic advocate for a better and fairer food system, and an expert at the logistics needed to make that happen.  The company is run by 80 percent women, buys from 340 growers, has $22 million in annual sales and is 97% organic.  Veritable Vegetable is known for its generosity to its producers and its strong advocacy for a better food system.  

Alyx Perry, Southern Forests Network and Rob Lamb, Forest Stewards
Alyx Perry is the Director of the Southern Forests Network, a network of landowners, forestry professionals, forest-based businesses, and others working to conserve private forestlands and cultivate sustainable forest economies in the South.

Cricket Rakita, Quality Certification Services and CFSA Saving Our Seed Coordinator
Cricket Rakita has years of experience in organic farming and all things seeds.  He has been the coordinator of CFSA's Saving Our Seed project.  Recently, Cricket joined the team of Quality Certification Services.

Trace Ramsey
Trace is the Project Manager for Eastern Carolina Organics and is actively engaged in supporting local food systems through his work and personal life.  He lives in Circle Acres, a radical ecological land project in Silk Hope, NC.  Circle Acres develops self sustaining ecosystems capable of providing food, medicine and knowledge for the residents and community.     

Chris Reberg-Horton, NCSU
Chris is an organic cropping specialist at North Carolina State University. He works on weed management and fertility management in corn, soybeans, and wheat. 

Jim Riddle, University of Minnesota
Jim Riddle is a well-known teacher and advocate of organic farming methods.  He was the founding chair of the Independent Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA), and co-authored the International Organic Inspection Manual. Riddle trains organic inspectors throughout the world. Most recently, Riddle was appointed as the endowed chair of Agricultural Systems at UMinn. He is researching organic livestock needs and European government support systems for organic agriculture.
He also is chair of the National Organic Standards Board, which advises the USDA on organic agriculture.

Debbie Roos, NCSU
Debbie Roos is an Agriculture Agent for the Chatham County Center of NC Cooperative Extension where she works primarily with producers interested in sustainable and organic production.  Debbie delivers educational programming to growers through regular workshops and her Growing Small Farms website (www.growingsmallfarms.org). Debbie is passionate about pollinator conservation and has developed resources to teach others about the importance of bees and other pollinators to our agriculture ecosystem.

Mark Schonbeck, Virginia Association for Biological Farming
Mark Schonbeck has 20+ years experience in sustainable agriculture research, consulting and technical writing, including organic vegetables, soil and nutrient management, cover crops, mulches and reduced tillage; and helps maintain a homestead garden. He has developed educational materials on organic weed management, most recently through eOrganic.      

Michelle Schroeder-Moreno, NCSU
Michelle Schroeder-Moreno is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop Science at NC State University where she coordinates the undergraduate Agroecology education program and teaches agroecology courses. Her research is currently focused on understanding how integrated approaches of using summer cover crops, compost application and inoculation with beneficial mycorrhizal fungi may enhance strawberry production in the Southeast. Her main expertise is understanding the benefits and how to sustainably manage mycorrhizal fungi in various agricultural systems.

Robert Andrew Smith, Leaflight Foundation
Robert has more than ten years of experience bringing sustainable development to the food and farming community.  He is a strong advocate for social reform in state and federal programs.  Mr. Smith served on NC's Food Policy Council from 2001-2003.  For the past five years he has been dedicated full-time to establishing and implementing 21st Century farmers’ markets programs. 

David Stender, Iowa State University
Dave Stender is a certified Professional Animal Scientist.  He received his BS and MS degrees from Iowa State University and joined ISU Extension in 1984 as an agriculturist. Since 1989, Dave has worked as an ISU swine specialist in western IA, where he is now serving 21 counties. His specialization is in swine management, records, niche markets, nutrition, and computerized system analysis for swine production.  He is one of the top niche swine experts in the country.

George Teague, Reedy Fork Farm
George Teague and his family farm 800 acres just outside Greensboro and are committed organic practitioners.  “We were a typical conventional dairy operation,” George says, “ which means we were constantly trying to boost production, going into more debt to do that, and doing all the work for our cows.” A few years ago, George went on an organic farm tour, and when he came back, he was a changed man. The farm is now a part of the Organic Valley family.

Steve Washburn, CEFS
Steven is the research and education coordinator for the 170-cow seasonal calving pasture-based dairy research herd at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, NC.  He is an Extension Specialist and Professor at NC State University.

Ann Wells, Springpond Holistic Animal Health, Arkansas
Ann is a nationally-known expert on holistic management of livestock and a veterinarian with over fifteen years experience in organic livestock production. She has worked in private practice for eleven years and with ATTRA for nine.   Dr. Wells travels the country educating farmers about livestock systems built on less stress for the animal and based on high quality grazing and soils.  She is a highly sought-after speaker and an enthusiastic proponent of holistic animal health.  Dr. Wells raises beef for a cooperative called Ozark Pasture Beef.     

Dr. John Wilson
Dr. John Wilson is the founder and guiding light behind the Black Mountain Community Garden.  A former pediatrician and medical missionary, Dr. Wilson is known as a passionate and knowledgeable gardener and farmer.  He is particularly interested in season extension and techniques for growing in cold weather.  At the age of 93, he is still very active in the work of the garden.

Mark Winne, Community Food Security Coalition
Mark Winne is the Food Policy Council Project Director for the Community Food Security Coalition. During the 25 years he ran the Hartford Food System (Conn.) he organized the City of Hartford and State of Connecticut Food Policy Councils. He has provided technical assistance to dozens of community and state food policy initiatives. Mark is the author of “Closing the Food Gap.”

Geoff Zehnder, Clemson University
Geoff is professor of entomology and coordinator for the sustainable agriculture program at Clemson University. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of California and has held research positions in vegetable pest management at Virginia Tech and Auburn University. In his position at Clemson Geoff directs a statewide training and education program in sustainable/organic agriculture, and also coordinates the Student Organic Farm project on Clemson campus.

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