Theme: Food and Farming
Saturday, December 5th
The vast biodiversity of our planet is the underlying fabric supporting all life on Earth, but the prognosis is grim: biodiversity rates are continuing to plummet as extinctions of species accelerate. Fortunately, the evidence suggests that there are in fact viable pathways for successful action at a global scale, but only if we mobilize and act decisively and rapidly. In this session, we will learn how we can protect and restore 50% of global landscapes while staying below 1.5°C temperature rise in the next few decades. Projects such as the newly launched Global Safety Net provide a roadmap: a bioregional approach combining world-class science, a clear focus on Indigenous rights and stewardship, support for grassroots action, and a vision for transformative philanthropy. Hosted by Justin Winters, Co-Founder and Executive Director of One Earth, with: Carly Vynne, Strategic Partner at RESOLVE; Oscar Soria, Campaign Director at AVAAZ; Karl Burkart, Managing Director of One Earth; Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana, part of the senior leadership of the Brazilian Coordination of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon (COIAB).
December 5th | 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm
Panelists
Justin Winters
Co-Founder and Executive Director | One Earth
Justin Winters, formerly Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, is the co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, an organization working to galvanize science, advocacy and philanthropy to drive collective action on climate change to forge a path forward to a 2050 in which 100% renewable energy; protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans; and a transition to regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture create a world in which humanity and nature coexist and thrive together.
Carly Vynne
Strategic Partner | RESOLVE
Carly Vynne, Ph.D, is an ecologist and conservation strategist who seeks out creative solutions for how we can leave more room for nature in a rapidly changing world. She recently co-authored The Global Deal for Nature, which calls for an ambitious, time-bound set of nature-based targets that must be achieved if we are to solve the climate and extinction crises.
Oscar Soria
Campaign Director | Avaaz
Oscar Soria, Campaign Director at the renowned, highly effective, international civic movement Avaaz, is an Argentine human rights and environmental campaigner who has received widespread recognition for his innovative work at the intersection of technology, organizing, and advocacy on social, political, and environmental issues. He previously held senior global roles in Greenpeace and WWF and served in non-executive or advisory roles for the boards of several prominent organizations, including: Oxfam, Amnesty International, and the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities.
Karl Burkart
Managing Director | One Earth
Karl Burkart is the Managing Director of One Earth, which supports academic institutions and NGOs working on the cutting edges of climate and energy science, biodiversity mapping, and sustainable agriculture. Formerly Director of Media, Science and Technology at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Karl's past projects include: creating the blog, Greendig; producing and writing Planet 100, the Discovery Network's first online video news show; and leading digital advocacy for the TckTckTck campaign, a global network of more than 450 NGOs working to secure a strong international climate agreement. Karl's publications include co-authoring the groundbreaking paper "A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding Principles, Milestones, and Targets" in 2019.
Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana
| Brazilian Coordination of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon (COIAB)
Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana is part of the senior leadership of the Brazilian Coordination of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon (COIAB). At a very young age, in the late 90’s she played a critical role in the struggle of the Kaxuyana, Kahyana and Tunayana peoples that led the demarcation of their lands in 2003. Angela led several indigenous led conservation initiatives and has a degree in Business Administration with specialization in environmental management.
Conventional industrial agriculture is systemically flawed, generating enormous collateral environmental, human and economic damage. To face the challenges of erratic climate, natural resource destruction, increased population, and the hardship economics of farming, we need skilled regenerative farmers and a more localized food system. This session will feature three leading figures working on different aspects of the movement to radically transform agriculture. We will begin with an introductory discussion with the whole group, followed by three separate, simultaneous breakouts:
1. Regenerative Agriculture: Bringing life back to soils depleted by agrochemicals and destructive practices is the key to ensuring the land’s capacity to produce sufficient amounts of healthy food. With: regenerative agriculture consultant Jonathan Lundgren, owner of Blue Dasher Farm, where he combines cutting-edge science with hands-on experience to remove the barriers to adopting regenerative agriculture.
2. New Farmers: The average age of American farmers is close to 60 years old. Activist-farmer Severine von Tscharner Fleming is the founder and Director of Greenhorns, a national organization promoting, recruiting and supporting new farmers. She will explore the challenges and triumphs of becoming a farmer, what you need to know if you are contemplating becoming a farmer, and what agricultural reforms are needed to increase new farmers’ chances for success.
3. Local Food: Michael Ableman, based at Foxglove Farm in British Columbia and co-founder/Director of Sole Food Street Farms, is one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement who has developed urban farms in California and British Columbia; and has worked on and advised dozens of projects throughout North America and the Caribbean. Founder of the nonprofit Center for Urban Agriculture, he is the subject of the award-winning PBS film Beyond Organic narrated by Meryl Streep. His books include: From the Good Earth; On Good Land; Fields of Plentyand Street Farm; Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier.
December 5th | 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists
Jonathan Lundgren
CEO | Blue Dasher Farm
Jonathan Lundgren, Ph.D., an agro-ecologist and leading figure in the field of regenerative agriculture, is the Director of the ECDYSIS Foundation and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm. An award-winning scientist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service for 11 years, he has served as an advisor for national panels and regulatory agencies on pesticide and GM crop risk assessments, written 126 peer-reviewed journal articles, and authored the book, Relationships of Natural Enemies and Non-prey Foods.
Severine von Tscharner Fleming
Director | The Greenhorns
Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a Maine-based farmer, activist, and organizer, runs Smithereen Farm, a MOFGA certified organic wild blueberry, seaweed, and orchard operation that also hosts summer camps and educational workshops. A founder and board member of Agrarian Trust and current Director of The Greenhorns, a grassroots organization whose mission is to recruit and support incoming generations of new farmers, Severine is also: co-founder and board secretary of Farm Hack, an online, open-source platform for appropriate farm tools and technologies; co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition; on the board of the Schumacher Center for New Economics; and on the advisory board of Savanna Institute.
Michael Ableman
Co-Founder/Director | Sole Food Street Farms
Michael Ableman, based at Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia and co-founder/Director of Sole Food Street Farms, is one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement who, over the decades, created high-profile urban farms in Watts, California; Goleta, California; and Vancouver, British Columbia; and has worked on and advised dozens of similar projects throughout North America and the Caribbean. Founder of the nonprofit Center for Urban Agriculture, he is the subject of the award-winning PBS film Beyond Organic narrated by Meryl Streep. His books include: From the Good Earth; On Good Land; and Fields of Plenty.
Sunday, December 13th
Our most cherished sustainable farming practices, from organic agriculture to the farm cooperative, have roots in African wisdom, but discrimination and violence against African-American farmers have led to their decline from 14% of all growers in 1920 to less than 2% today. Furthermore, Black communities suffer disproportionately from food apartheid. Renowned longtime farmer, educator, author, and food sovereignty activist, Leah Penniman, will explain the deep roots of this land loss and food injustice and share the work she at Soul Fire Farm and others around the country in Black and Brown farming communities are doing to reclaim ancestral rights, renew ties to the land, achieve genuine agency in the food system, and advance food sovereignty.(Leah is also the sister of frequent Bioneers presenter Naima Penniman, half of the brilliant musical/spoken-word duo, Climbing PoeTree.)
December 13th | 11:02 am to 11:17 am
Keynote
Leah Penniman
Co-Executive Director | Soul Fire Farm
Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer, mother, Vodun Manye (Queen Mother), and award-winning food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for over 20 years. She currently serves as founding Co-Executive Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a people-of-color led project that works toward food and land justice, which she co-founded in 2010. She is the author of: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land.
People of Color have been marginalized in regards to the production and consumption of, and access to, healthy foods and as a result have far higher rates of food insecurity and of negative health impacts that result from poor nutrition. Three community leaders discuss how they are working to break through the impacts of colonization to develop a community-owned food system that is equitable, profitable and built on respectful relationships. Hosted by Naima Penniman, Program Director at Soul Fire Farm. With farmer, author Leah Penniman; Mohawk seed keeper and farmer, Rowen White; and Rev. Heber Brown, founder of the Black Church Food Security Network.
December 13th | 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm
Panelists
Heber Brown
Founding Director | Orita’s Cross Freedom School
Rev. Heber Brown, a multiple award-winning community organizer and social entrepreneur, is Senior Pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore, MD, and founding Director of Orita’s Cross Freedom School, which works to reconnect Black youth to their African heritage while providing them with hands-on learning opportunities to spark their creativity and build vocational skills. In 2015 he launched the Black Church Food Security Network, a multi-state alliance of congregations dedicated to creating a grassroots, community-led food system.
Leah Penniman
Co-Executive Director | Soul Fire Farm
Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer, mother, Vodun Manye (Queen Mother), and award-winning food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for over 20 years. She currently serves as founding Co-Executive Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a people-of-color led project that works toward food and land justice, which she co-founded in 2010. She is the author of: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land.
Rowen White
Founder/Director | Sierra Seeds
Rowen White, a seed keeper and farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for Indigenous seed and food sovereignty, is founder/Director of Sierra Seeds, an innovative California-based organic seed stewardship organization; and Program Director for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network, an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance.
Naima Penniman
Program Director | Soul Fire Farm
Naima Penniman, an artist, activist, healer, grower and educator committed to planetary health and community resilience, is the co-founder of WILDSEED Community Farm and Healing Village, a Black and Brown-led intentional community focused on ecological collaboration, transformative justice, and intergenerational responsibility. She is also: Program Director at Soul Fire Farm, dedicated to supporting the next generation of B.I.P.O.C. (Black/Indigenous/people of color) farmers; the co-founder/co-artistic director of Climbing PoeTree, an internationally-acclaimed performance duo; a Thai Yoga Massage practitioner; and a member of Harriet's Apothecary, a collective of Black women-identified healers.
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