Ranching and Farming at the Radical Center
November 15 – 17, 2017
The annual Quivira Conference is internationally renowned for bringing together leaders, innovators, and stewards of the land for three days of provocative plenary presentations, roundtable discussions, and networking with diverse attendees from across the southwest, the country, and globe. The conference creates a unique environment where ideas are sown, exchanged, and grown. Quivira’s outstanding speakers and attendees contribute expertise in ranching, farming, conservation, community, and all things soil, which is the key to it all. Every attendee brings something unique to the table, and each departs with inspiration, new connections, broader perspectives, and the tools necessary to effect change.
Quivira celebrates 20 years in 2017!
In two decades of collaboration, we have grown a web of knowledge and a network of human relationships focused on soil, water, and neighbors. Our original tagline—working to achieve harmony between humans and nature—has changed and our methods have evolved, but the essence of our work has not. We continue to cultivate innovation, education, collaboration, and hope as the nexus from which soil is restored and relationships are grown. This year our gathering will take a particularly people-oriented approach, bringing the community together in conversations about how to focus on what really matters… ranching and farming at the Radical Center.
Working in the Radical Center allows us to concentrate on land health and community building. It blocks noise and distraction and keeps us focused on action in the places where we make the biggest difference. In the past two decades, we’ve developed a deeper understanding of ecosystem complexity and a growing toolkit for healing land, restoring watersheds, and strengthening community. The 2017 Quivira Conference will focus on how to foster the human relationships that allow us get this work done.
Together at this year’s conference we’ll explore the myriad work and social relationships that make for healthy people and a resilient planet, with particular attention to the role that ranchers and farmers play in cultivating them. From watershed restoration and rangeland monitoring that bring ranchers and conservationists together—to growing crops that encourage balance between bacteria and fungus for carbon sequestration—to matching aspiring and retiring ranchers working together on meaningful land succession—Quivira’s success and the ability for lasting and meaningful impact is rooted in a deep commitment to relationship building.
We invite you to join us.
About this year’s conference
Connect
Hear from experts. Make lasting connections. Take home new skills and ideas. Begin partnerships for change. For 15 years, the Quivira Conference has been a hub for individuals and groups coming together around the concepts of fostering ecological, economic, and social health through education, innovation, collaboration, and progressive public and private land stewardship.
Come together
The Quivira Conference is renowned for bringing together a broad community as diverse as the lands they manage. Our attendees come from across the southwest, the country, and the globe and bring their expertise as farmers and ranchers, scientists, government agencies, conservationists and innovators in managing healthy land. Whether you are a young farmer preparing to dig your hands into the soil for the first time or a professional interested in new ideas and opportunities for collaboration, our conference has something for you.
Participate
Sponsorship is the fundamental soil that allows us to make the Quivira Conference happen each year. We offer attractive benefits for sponsors at a variety of levels. Please click here to view the benefits available to sponsors. If you have any questions, contact Nick Mendoza at nick@quiviracoalition.org.
Stay
The conference will be held at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Albuquerque Hotel & Spa, an all-suites hotel. It is centrally located in downtown Albuquerque, three miles from Albuquerque International Airport. Free parking, complimentary indoor pool, fitness & business centers, and free made-to-order breakfast are available to guests. Book at a special Quivira Conference rate of $129/night. Rooms are limited and conference block rates close October 16th.
Attend
You can find a breakdown of pricing for the conference, special events, dinners, and workshops on our Conference Registration page.
Special rates are available for Early Bird registrants, Quivira Members, and Young Farmers/Ranchers and Students attending their first Quivira Conference. Additionally, some scholarships are available. Interested in sponsoring scholarships? Please click here.
Partner
Sponsorship is the fundamental soil that allows us to make the Quivira Conference happen each year. We offer attractive benefits for sponsors at a variety of levels. Please click here to view the sponsorship levels. For more information, contact Arielle Quintana at arielle@quiviracoalition.org.
CONFERENCE ATTENDEES
SPEAKERS
Allen Williams
Principal, Soil Health Consultants, LLC
Dr. Ann Adams
Executive Director, Holistic Management International
Larry Littlebird
Pueblo Elder & Founding Director, Hamaatsa
Wendell Gilgert
Director, Rangeland Watershed Initiative
Allen is a “recovering academic,” having authored more than 400 scientific and popular press articles, and is an invited speaker at national and international conferences. His major areas of research and business focus include soil health, cover crop/livestock integration, adaptive forage & grazing management, high attribute pasture-based meat production, and alternative marketing systems.
Plenary Talk Topic: Restore Soil Health & Ecosystem Health Through Adaptive Grazing
Everything we do in agriculture results in either negative or positive compounding effects on the soil, plants, animals, and us. The question is not whether this is the case, but whether we are going to respond with appropriate management practices. Adaptive grazing can produce significant positive compounding effects that can alter soil health parameters, plant species complexity & diversity, insect and pollinator species, birds & wildlife, livestock performance & health, and eventually human health & vitality. Even weather patterns are impacted by our agricultural practices. With adaptive management practices, we can have a positive influence on local and regional weather impacts, producer greater drought resilience, and reduce flooding potential. Beyond these compounding benefits, the practitioner will also realize improvement in net profits per acre, reduced reliance on external inputs, and better quality of life
Roundtable Discussion Topic: Adaptive Grazing: Practical Steps and Problem Solving
Picking up on the three principles of adaptive grazing presented in his plenary talk, Allen Williams will lead a discussion focused on strategies that producers and interested parties can use to practically implement these on their land. Everyone faces unique challenges in their particular contexts. This is an opportunity to discuss adaptive management practices and how they can produce a positive influence on your local and regional weather, greater drought resilience, and reduce flooding potential, while improving net profits per acre and quality of life.
Joyce Farms
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Roundtable Topic: Holistic Management for the Radical Center
What are the human, financial, and natural resource issues you face? What tools and techniques have you found to be helpful in addressing these issues? Holistic Management is a systems approach for effective adaptive management of all resources. Using a value-based decision-making process you can create common ground even in high conflict situations and determine appropriate action plans for key stakeholders. This roundtable will include Holistic Management practitioners and educators sharing the results they have seen using this process. Come share your challenges and successes to deepen our learning of effective tools for the radical center.
Holistic Management International
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Plenary Talk Topic: Bringing Back the Sacred in the Way We Eat, Grow and Share Our Food
Through regenerative farming practices, permaculture and indigenous land wisdom, we are committed to growing and eating healthy food, and sharing knowledge, seeds and building relationships within our local communities.
HAMAATSA
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In June 2011, he retired from NRCS and transitioned to work with the Point Blue Conservation Science to direct their Rangeland Watershed Initiative which is an effort to place, train, and manage partner biologists to help plan, implement and monitor USDA Farm Bill Programs on private land.
Plenary Talk/Roundtable Topic: Point Blue’s Rangeland Watershed Initiative-ReWatering California One Ranch at a Time
Point Blue Conservation Science is collaborating with the USDA-NRCS, cooperating ranchers, RCD’s and conservation partners to improve rangelands in California. Point Blue Partner Biologists are teaming up with NRCS Field Conservationists and RCD’s to working closely with ranchers, land trusts, and some public lands to plan, and apply prescribed rangeland grazing and management practices. With support from NRCS and Farm Bill programs, cooperating ranchers are utilizing technical assistance to increase soil water retention in foothill watersheds, increase livestock forage, improve water supply reliability both on-site and downstream, enhance ranching productivity, expand riparian corridors and wetland habitat for migratory birds and enhance upland wildlife habitats.
Our companion effort, the Rangeland Monitoring Network (RMN) measures soil carbon, vegetative trends, and wildlife habitat benefits of prescriptive grazing and associated grazing practices.
Point Blue Conservation Science
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Michael Phillips
Orchardist, Herbalist & Author, Heartsong Farm Healing Herbs
Laura Paine
Program Director, Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship
Calla Rose Ostrander
Independent Communications & Climate Policy Consultant
Harrison Topp
Membership Director, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union & Manager, Topp Fruits
Plenary Talk Topic: Soil Redemption Song
This lively exploration of soil biology and healthy plant metabolism will rouse every gardener, farmer, rancher, and fruit grower to think deeper. How mycorrhizal fungi enhance plant health is absolutely stunning. Nutrients are delivered by means of “fungus-root” synergy. A boost to green immune function helps keep disease at bay. Expansive fungal networks bring resiliency to ecosystems. Soil aggregate formation addresses carbon flow. Yet for the longest time, we have ignored basic soil biology and instead disturbed ecosystems at our own peril. Time to change all that, and fast!
Roundtable Discussion Topic: Mycorrhizal Stewardship
How do we as growers best carry fungal futures forward? Which scenarios call for mycorrhizal inoculum? And which are good to go? What does “southwest fungal diversity” look like? How do mycorrhizae correlate with good grazing practice? How can we as growers do even better as regards the Nondisturbance Principle? Time to delve into fungal consciousness as a primary driver of sustainable land stewardship.
www.HerbsAndApples.com
www.GrowOrganicApples.com
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Plenary Talk Topic: Training the Next Generation of Land Stewards
For centuries, apprenticeship has been the means of passing on the skills of many trades, from engravers and silversmiths in the middle ages to electricians and carpenters today. Using work-based learning alongside experienced artisans is a means of ensuring that the basic skills needed for a functional society are maintained across generations. Why not in agriculture? There is no societal function more basic than producing the food that sustains us and stewarding the natural resources on which we depend. This session will focus on how we can create a tradition and culture around passing on the best practices of our craft to future generations, as well as why it is critical that we do.
Roundtable Topic: Building a culture of mentorship in Agriculture
Join current and prospective ranching and farming mentors for a discussion of agricultural apprenticeship. What are the keys to a successful mentoring relationship? What common challenges do producers face in training the next generation? This session will cover the nuts and bolts, from hiring to setting expectations, giving feedback to structuring productive learning. Moderated by Laura Paine with Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship, and Monica Pless with Quivira’s New Agrarian Program, the roundtable will encourage sharing lessons, concerns, and successes in passing on the skills, goal setting, and holistic mindset needed for aspiring agrarians to manage operations and steward land.
Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship
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Panel Topic: Carbon Farming, A Replicable Model from California
This panel led by Calla Rose will present an overview of carbon farming in California, including updates on the state’s Healthy Soils Initiative, building out the supply of compost for ranchers and farmers, and collaborative regional development to support carbon farming in southern California.
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Harrison Topp is the Membership Director for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and the manager of Topp Fruits in Paonia, CO. He works with a diverse spectrum of farmers and ranchers in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, to build community driven chapters and organize around local, state, and federal issues that impact agriculture. Topp is passionate about two things – soil and helping develop grassroots leaders. He is a first generation farmer, who began farming after college on a sugar farm in North Carolina and is now developing a commercial orchard business in his home state of Colorado. Topp graduated from New York University in 2009 with a double major in Film and Television Production and Anthropology.
Plenary Talk Topic: The Radical Re-centering of a Wiseacre Young Farmer
To understand the radical center, it helps to respect farmers from all the far-flung sides of the agricultural system. Even better, one can strive to be a better farmer in adopting qualities and lessons from all those unlikely mentors. This plenary session will explore the training and experiences of a young peach farmer and community organizer, whose livelihood depends on expanding his network’s boundaries. In the field, in his community, and industry, he’s confronted the multitude of linkages that keep our food system aloft. Like many farmers and organizers before him, his story explores the intersectional forces that shape the radical center and our role in the future of agriculture.
Facebook: Rockymountainfarmersunion
Twitter: @harrisontopp, @rmfunion
IG: harrisontopp
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Michelle Otero
Writer, Community-based Artist, and Coach
Monica Pless
New Agrarian Program, The Quivira Coalition
Cathryn Wild
Founder and Executive Director, Seventh Generation Institute
Katherine Yuhas
Albuquerque Water Resources Division Manager, Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority
She is the author of Malinche’s Daughter, an essay collection based on her work with women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Oaxaca, Mexico as a Fulbright Fellow. She lives in Albuquerque where she works with fellow artists and local farmers to implement the Community Table project, which combines art, local agriculture, and economic development as a platform for neighborhood revitalization. Michelle holds a B.A. in History from Harvard University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College.
Michelle will be delivering the Final Conference Plenary on Friday, November 17th, A Stand of Aspens: Reflections on Standing Together.
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Roundtable Topic: Building a culture of mentorship in Agriculture
Join current and prospective ranching and farming mentors for a discussion of agricultural apprenticeship. What are the keys to a successful mentoring relationship? What common challenges do producers face in training the next generation? This session will cover the nuts and bolts, from hiring to setting expectations, giving feedback to structuring productive learning. Moderated by Laura Paine with Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship, and Monica Pless with Quivira’s New Agrarian Program, the roundtable will encourage sharing lessons, concerns, and successes in passing on the skills, goal setting, and holistic mindset needed for aspiring agrarians to manage operations and steward land.
Laura Paine and Monica Pless will lead a roundtable focused on agrarian programs across the country, including the key ingredients for successful mentorship
Keynote: Film Discussion
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Cathryn holds an M.S. in environmental management, with emphasis in conservation biology, from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a B.S. in Agricultural Education in addition to teaching credentials in Life Science and Vocational Agriculture from the University of California at Davis. She expanded those early skills and knowledge through the “School of Life” working on projects from marine protected area management to ecotourism planning, endangered species conservation, stream restoration, and climate change adaptation. Locations included Honduras, Colombia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Bonaire and the western US. In addition to her work with the Institute, Cathryn is a member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management and contributes to their work. “Everything I’ve learned in life is wrapped up in the Institute’s new school approach to conservation,” she says.
Cathryn will facilitate the screening of her film, Rethinking Beaver: Old Nuisance or New Partner, and will moderate the panel discussion following the film.
Seventh Generation Institute
Seventh Generation Institute is not interested in the “old school environmentalism” characterized by litigation, arguing, and fighting. Where are the results after so many years? The Institute’s approach to achieving our mission is based in three concepts: entrepreneurial-applied science, collaboration and impact. This is what we mean by “new school conservation.” Throw in a dash of common sense, and you have fresh ideas and strategies for conservation. As we work throughout the West and beyond, we are finding common ground with people everywhere.
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Panel Topic: The Groundbreaking Rio Grande Water Fund
This panel of experts will discuss the Rio Grande Water Fund, an innovative project created to invest in the long term restoration of Northern New Mexico’s forested lands and watersheds, with the goal of creating sustainable funding for the work needed to protect clean water for local communities and larger cities downstream. The Rio Grande Water Fund will generate sustainable funding for a 20-year program of large-scale forest and watershed restoration treatments targeting 600,000 acres north of Albuquerque—including thinning overgrown forests, restoring streams and rehabilitating areas that flood after wildfires.
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority
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Sandra Postel
Director, Global Water Policy Project
Russell Chamberlin
Co-Manager, Ted Chamberlin Ranch
Mike Callicrate
Farmer-rancher, Entrepreneur, Family Farm Advocate
Dr. Keri Brandt
Professor of Sociology & Gender Studies, Fort Lewis College
Panel Topic: The Groundbreaking Rio Grande Water Fund
Sandra will moderate a panel of experts in discussing the Rio Grande Water Fund, an innovative project created to invest in the long term restoration of Northern New Mexico’s forested lands and watersheds, with the goal of creating sustainable funding for the work needed to protect clean water for local communities and larger cities downstream. The Rio Grande Water Fund will generate sustainable funding for a 20-year program of large-scale forest and watershed restoration treatments targeting 600,000 acres north of Albuquerque—including thinning overgrown forests, restoring streams and rehabilitating areas that flood after wildfires.
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Panel Topic: Carbon Farming, A Replicable Model from California
Russell will be a member of the California Carbon Project panel. The panel will present an overview of carbon farming in California, including updates on the state’s Healthy Soils Initiative, building out the supply of compost for ranchers and farmers, and collaborative regional development to support carbon farming in California.
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Plenary Talk/Roundtable Topic: Zombie Agriculture and the Denial of Death
Industrial agriculture has resulted in dead soils and animals living in torturous conditions. We call this process “zombie agriculture” in reference to constant supply of synthetic inputs required to reanimate the dead. This process hurts farmers and ranchers relationships with their land and animals and allows consumers to eat without having to confront death. The imperative is to engage in eating and producing food as a sacred activity and being in relationship with all living beings. It is also about understanding that part of the human legacy is to be aware of the complexity of eating and its sacred relationship to death. This, we hold, brings us back to the radical center.
Fort Lewis College
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Lesli Allison
Executive Director, Western Landowners Alliance
Lance Bernal
Wildlife Biologist, Vermejo Park Ranch
Laura McCarthy
Associate State Director, The Nature Conservancy
Rick Danvir
Western Landowners Alliance
Roundtable Topic: Leading from the Land: Finding Common Ground in Public Policy
Increasingly few policy makers today have experience in land and natural resource management. As a result, public policies impacting western lands and agriculture are often driven by competing special interest groups, DC-based think tanks and political rhetoric. If we want public policies that make sense on the ground, unite rather than divide, and provide for future generations, it’s time to exert unified leadership from the land. The place-based collaborative movement that has emerged in the West over the past two decades has the potential to better inform public policy and help bring a perilously divided nation back onto common ground. This roundtable will consider current efforts and opportunities to bring this movement to scale.
Facebook: Westernlandownersalliance
@VoiceofWLA
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Plenary Talk Topic: Big Game Management and Predator/Prey Dynamics on
Working Landscapes
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Laura’s prior work includes more than a decade with the USDA Forest Service as a firefighter and planner. She has also worked for a State Forester and the Santa Fe-based Forest Guild.
Laura’s professional life was significantly altered by the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000, which she watched from across the valley and that fostered her interest in better policy and management of forested watersheds. Las Conchas Fire in 2011, with its massive post-fire debris flows, deepened her concerns and sharpened the point on water source protection.
Laura is enjoying her role building bridges that connect people to nature, including land and water managers, and urban and rural communities. She has earned several awards for her work, most recently, Governor Martinez’s Environmental Leader in 2015 and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2017.
Panel Topic: The Groundbreaking Rio Grande Water Fund
This panel of experts will discuss the Rio Grande Water Fund, an innovative project created to invest in the long term restoration of Northern New Mexico’s forested lands and watersheds, with the goal of creating sustainable funding for the work needed to protect clean water for local communities and larger cities downstream. The Rio Grande Water Fund will generate sustainable funding for a 20-year program of large-scale forest and watershed restoration treatments targeting 600,000 acres north of Albuquerque—including thinning overgrown forests, restoring streams and rehabilitating areas that flood after wildfires.
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For over thirty years Rick has managed wildlife and land with Deseret Ranches and as a private consultant throughout the Intermountain West, the Great Plains, and other random locales. A member of the Wildlife Society and Society for Range Management, Rick has served on many local, state and federal boards and committees. He focuses on collaborative and holistic resource management solutions. He is the Wildlife and Range Advisor to Western Landowners Alliance and as the owner of Basin Wildlife Consulting, LLC.
Plenary Topic: TBA
Using Earth Sense technology, we compared percent upland bare ground and riparian vegetation between lands managed using time-controlled grazing principles and more traditional grazing practices. intensively managed ranches significantly less bare ground and more riparian vegetation.
Western Landowners Alliance
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Kevin Watt
Policy & Strategy Manager, TomKat Ranch
Kevin Muno
Co-Founder, Ecology Artisans
Janine Fitzgerald
Professor of Sociology & Environmental Studies, Fort Lewis College
Jan-Willem Jansens
Landscape Planner, Ecotone Landscape Planning
Panel Topic: Carbon Farming, A Replicable Model from California
Kevin will be a member of the California Carbon Project panel. The panel will present an overview of carbon farming in California, including updates on the state’s Healthy Soils Initiative, building out the supply of compost for ranchers and farmers, and collaborative regional development to support carbon farming in California.
www.tomkatranch.org
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Kevin Muno will be a member of the California Carbon Project Panel. The panel will present an overview of carbon farming in California, including updates on the state’s Healthy Soils Initiative, building out the supply of compost for ranchers and farmers, and collaborative regional development to support carbon farming in California.
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