In 2009, three bellas met at the Wheat Free Gourmet Cooking School in Boulder, CO. Mary (school founder) and Cecilia and Tracy (Le Cordon Bleu culinary students) came together to explore and learn the secrets of beautiful gluten-free cuisine.
Tom Rabaey is a Sr. Manager leading the Agronomy Sciences group focused on research in conventional and organic systems, soil health, regenerative agriculture practices and oat breeding and is the liaison for global agronomy at General Mills in Minneapolis, MN.
Dan Kittridge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years, and is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association, an 8-year old non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply”. Known as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density”, Dan has worked to demonstrate the connections between plant health, soil health, carbon sequestration, crop nutritional value, flavor and human health.
Ryan Speer joined Jacob Farms and Cattle near Sedgwick, Kansas 18 years ago as a farm manager, and brought the farm into a continuous no-till operation shortly thereafter. He has since become a full partner in the business, implementing a system of production that improves soil health.
Mike & Jackie Neff live in Decatur County in Northwest Kansas. Their operation includes a rotation of wheat, triticale, sunflowers (oil), corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Continuous no-till has been a part of their system since 2000 and cover crops were added in 2009. Livestock is being added to help utilize the covers and add economical benefits to the operation. The Neff's are trying to emulate Mother Nature with diversity and soil covers to help with water infiltration in their semi-arid environment.
Russ Jackson grew up on the family farm in Mountain View, Oklahoma. After graduating high school, he attended Cameron University and Southwestern Oklahoma State University. From an early age he worked alongside his father using conventional heavy tillage on a wide variety of soils. After hitting a wall with a decline in yields and even in fall grazing on wheat pasture he realized pH levels, along with fertility, weren’t the only problems facing the farm.
Adam Daugherty serves as the NRCS District Conservationist for Coffee County, TN. Adam started his soil rejuvenation journey back in the fall of 2013 with 8 long term no-till producers on about 2000 acres. Since 2013 Adam currently works with over 70 producers in Coffee County implementing diverse high biomass cover mixes on over half the cropland acres in the county. Adam has worked hand in hand with these producers from transitioning from long term no-till production into high functioning agro-ecological systems. Adam has been fortunate to be able to implement these systems across a w
Bryan was born and raised on the family farm in Ideal, SD to Martin and Mary Jorgensen. He is the fourth of four children. Bryan graduated from Winner High School in 1983. His passions for agriculture, equipment and crop production led him to get a BS in Mechanized Agriculture from South Dakota State University in 1987.
Upon graduation, Brya returned home to the family farm and married his high school sweetheart, Brenda. They have three children, Nicholas (wife Ashley), Kirsten and Reagan (husband Blake Nielsen).
