October 15, 2021, 9AM-4PM CST
Oakwood, TX
This workshop will focus on the crucial connection between soil health and human health. Visit woman-owned and operated The Regen Ranch and see how Christine Martin uses Holistic Management practices to manage her land for increased soil health and productivity. Learn how healthy soil leads to healthy livestock, more nutrient-dense foods, and healthy people!
Hear Dr. Fred Provenza and Stephan van Vliet speak on the nutritional value of grass-fed meat vs. grain-fed. Wayne Knight will speak about holistic grazing management and monitoring practices that build healthy soil and create long-term benefits for the land and the people managing it. Betsy Ross and Brandon Bing will discuss pasture soil health. Doctor and rancher, Dr. Arland Hill will present on ranching for high nutrient density.
We’ll spend the morning outside and explore the land seeing firsthand how Christine’s management decisions have resulted in increased organic matter in the soil, healthier animals, and more nutrient-dense meats along with speakers Betsy Ross and Brandon Bing. We’ll then enjoy a lunch featuring meats and vegetables from The Regen Ranch and neighboring farms. Afternoon presentations with Dr. Arland Hill, Fred Provenza, and Stephan van Vliet will be held indoors.
Agenda
October 15th, 9am – 4pm CST
| 9:00-9:15 am | Registration |
| 9:15-10:00 am | Introduction of The Regen Ranch by Christine Martin |
| 10:00-11:00 am | Pasture Soil Health by Betsy Ross |
| 11:00-Noon | Pasture & Livestock Management with Wayne Knight |
| Noon-1:00 pm | Lunch featuring grassfed meat from The Regen Ranch and produce from local farms |
| 1:00-2:00 pm | Livestock and Human Nutrition with Fred Provenza & Stephan van Vliet |
| 2:00-3:00 pm | Nourishing Food for Human Health by Dr. Arland Hill |
| 3:00-4:00 pm | How Soil Health, Livestock Health, Human Health Are Interrelated – Panel Discussion |
Registration
- $50 per person (includes lunch!)
COVID-19 Policy:
Of note, the format and/or requirements for event attendance may change in light of shifting CDC and state public health guidelines. HMI will make every effort to communicate these changes in a timely fashion.
The Regen Ranch and Christine Martin
The Regen Ranch
8698 CR 239
Oakwood, TX
“I was born in Argentina, raised in Brazil of British parents. My paternal family in Argentina lived in the city but also had a ‘camp’ (what the Argentine’s call a farm/ranch) where they raised cattle and grains. In Brazil, we lived in the outskirts of the city on a 1/4 acre where Dad had a little farm! He’d come home with quail, pigs, avocado and banana trees and anything he wanted to try out. As kids, we used to go around the neighborhood selling bananas and avocados from a wheelbarrow. Weekends always included a parillada (Argentine version of BBQ), where we would invite friends and spend hours at the table as each meat cut became available. A feast enjoyed by all!
“I was blessed to be able to come to Michigan for university, where I completed my undergrad (Accounting) and masters (Agricultural Economics). Corporate work allowed for overseas living and I finally arrived in Texas in 2001, where I started my homesteading phase (for the reasons I explain above) on 5 acres.
“Soon I became passionate about how our food is produced and how you’re only as healthy as the food you eat. I moved onto more acreage, started producing lamb meat and eggs, then turkey, and eventually beef cuts. I also started selling at local farmers market and loved helping and encouraging customers to cook from scratch and enjoy healthier meals.
-Christine Martin, Owner and Operator of The Regen Ranch
Speakers
Christine Martin – Owner/Operator, The Regen Ranch / Holistic Management Certified Educator In-Training
Christine Martin raises cattle, sheep, pigs, turkeys, and layers using Holistic Management and regenerative agricultural practices on 100 acres in East-Central Texas. She direct markets the meat to customers and regularly holds events at the ranch. Christine has spent the first two-thirds of her career in the corporate world trading agricultural commodities and in oil/gas marketing and has been able to build and increase her ranch customer base by 300% since she became serious about ranching in 2016. She transitioned from what she calls her ‘homesteading’ stage, while she was in the corporate world, to almost full-time ranching in 2016 after she graduated from HMI’s Beginning Farmer Rancher (BFR) course in Texas. She has been applying the tools and knowledge she gained during the BFR course to improve her triple bottom line (financial, social, and environmental) in her ranching operation. Helping others achieve a better triple bottom line, especially in promoting their products, is a passion for her. She has trained and coached fellow farmers’ market vendors, as well as other producers, since 2016 in improving their marketing strategy and finances. She is fluent in both English and Spanish.
Dr. Arland Hill – Functional Medicine and Nutrition Provider
Dr. Arland Hill has been a practicing functional medicine and nutrition provider for the last two decades. Over this time, patients grew increasingly sicker and continually responded poorer to interventions that just a few short years prior yielded consistent outcomes. In observation of these changes, Dr. Hill reflected back to his youth realizing the dramatic shifts that had occurred to our lifestyles and food supply. Suggesting patients visit the farmers’ market and eat organic was not enough. At this point, Dr. Hill acknowledged that his goal of improving patient nutrition and health had to evolve beyond clinical boundaries. So began the genesis of Harvest Hills Ranch, a regenerative agriculture ranch that aimed to create health in those that it served. Blending his passion for farming with his clinical knowledge, Dr. Hill has come to firmly accept his role and responsibility as a ranching doctor. He feels that the two roles have forged a mindset and approach to healthcare that is morally, ethically, and biochemically sound. Dr. Hill has embraced being a part of the small group that can legitimately call themselves ranchers and doctors. In so doing, he feels that he has been given a platform to share with health professionals the value of real nutrient-dense food not clouded with labels, outlandish claims, or fads designed to fool the population. Equally, he hopes to challenge the farmer and rancher’s outlook and help them understand their role as a vital component to a changing food supply while at the same time creating freedom from commodity systems. Dr. Hill is supported in his efforts by his wife Leah who brings an equal amount of knowledge and enthusiasm to these topics and at times more. Together, they practice what they preach, will tell you the cold truth, and look you in the eye while they do it.
Brandon Bing – Grazing Specialist for Texas NRCS
Brandon Bing works as a grazing specialist for Texas NRCS. This has given him an opportunity to see many unique operations and meet innovative producers throughout east Texas. He organizes monthly grazing tours at a regional level for producers to network and learn how other producers are utilizing soil health practices and grazing management.
Wayne Knight – Interim Executive Director and Certified Educator, HMI
With 27 years of ranching experience using Holistic Management, Wayne has had an identity crisis. When he joined the 11,000-acre family ranching business he called himself a cattle rancher. He changed to calling himself a grass farmer. Later still, he called himself a soil-microbe farmer, though he has always marketed beef. Privileged to work with his father, Tom Knight, who was an early adopter of Holistic Management under Allan Savory – Stan Parsons consulting, Wayne enthusiastically increased and intensified the practices HMI teaches. He became a Certified Educator in 2006 and was actively involved with the Southern African Certified Educator community organization, Community Dynamics. He has spoken at numerous conferences in Southern Africa, trained and mentored farmers, hosted open days on his property, and has written about his positive results using Holistic Management. Before joining the team at HMI Wayne served as a board member of the organization for 8 years. Through his enthusiasm for Holistic Management, Wayne has traveled widely visiting farmers who practice high-density, long recovery grazing practices in Southern Africa, Australia, and the US. As a young graduate with a Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Natal, South Africa, he traveled across the US west working on ranches in Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, California, and New Mexico. When not involved in Holistic Management you will find him fishing, birding, hiking, or exploring wild spaces and places with his family. An enthusiastic traveler, hunter, and photographer, he loves discovering new places and making new friends.
Stephan van Vliet – Nutrition Scientist and Metabolomics Expert in the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University
Dr. Stephan van Vliet earned his Ph.D. in Kinesiology as an ESPEN Fellow from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received training at Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine and Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. van Vliet’s research is performed at the nexus of agricultural and human health. He routinely collaborates with farmers, ecologists, and agricultural scientists to study critical linkages between agricultural production methods, the nutrient density of food, and human health. Dr. van Vliet uses metabolomics and proteomics techniques to study the presence of bioactive compounds in foods and their impacts on human metabolic health. His work has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Scientific Reports, the Journal of Nutrition, and the Journal of Physiology.
Betsy Ross – CEO and President of Sustainable Growth Texas, LLC and Partner in ‘Betsy Ross Grass-fed Beef’
Betsy Ross is dedicated to the principle that healthy soils grow healthy plants and these are necessary for healthy livestock, and ultimately, healthy people. Betsy has been a Certified Soil Foodweb Advisor since 2004. In addition to being a founding partner in Sustainable Growth Texas, she operates, with her family, a 530-acre stock farm in eastern Williamson County along the San Gabriel River. The farm is used as a ‘lab site’ for Sustainable Growth Texas work. Grass-fed finished beef is marketed as Betsy Ross Grass-fed Beef to Peoples Rx Pharmacies, and Greenling Organic Food Delivery in Austin, TX, as well as through the Internet and farm sales. Tenderness, flavor, and consistency are Ross Farm‘s mark of excellence. No corn, hormones, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides are used in the grass-based production system.
Dr. Fred Provenza – Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Ecology in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, Founder of BEHAVE, and Author
Fred Provenza grew up in Salida, Colorado, working on a ranch while attending school in Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University. He is professor emeritus of Behavioral Ecology in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University where he worked for 35 years, directing an award-winning research group that pioneered an understanding of how learning influences foraging behavior and how behavior links soil, plants, herbivores, and humans. He is one of the founders of BEHAVE, an international network of scientists, ranchers, farmers, and land managers committed to integrating behavioral principles with local knowledge to enhance the environmental, economic, and cultural values of rural and urban communities. He is the author of three books, including Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us about Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom; Foraging Behavior: Managing to Survive in a World of Change; and The Art & Science of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herders (co-author with Michel Meuret). He has published over 300 research papers in a wide variety of scientific journals. He has been an invited speaker at over 500 conferences. The many awards he received for research, teaching, and mentoring are the creativity that flowed from warm professional and personal relationships with over 75 graduate students, post-doctoral students, visiting scientists, and colleagues during the past 45 years.
Special Thanks to our Funder
This event is made possible by a generous contribution from The Dixon Water Foundation.
Thank You to our Sponsors
Seth Wilner has been a Holistic Management International Certified Educator since 2005. For 22 years he has worked as an agent educator with University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension where he specializes in farm business management with an emphasis on whole farm planning.
Dana was first introduced to Holistic Management in the 1990s while working in the Texas Hill Country. She strongly believes that Holistic Management can positively impact families that are on the land, the communities they are a part of, and larger landscape resource regeneration efforts.
Sarah Robertson grew up in Taos, New Mexico and has always been passionate about land stewardship, growing things, and nurturing others. After completing a BA in Communication from the University of New Mexico and working with local non-profits, she started her journey as a first-generation farmer. Since 2015, she has been learning and growing alongside her husband on various leased properties in Albuquerque, NM and running a small market farm with goats, chickens, and a CSA. In her role as Programs Assistant at HMI, Sarah brings her enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture, devotion to supporting others, and drive for lifelong learning and growing.
Jozua Lambrecht is from South Africa and divides his time between their home in Somerset West and their family farm in Sutherland, one of the coldest places in South Africa, where they farm with sheep. He is married to his wife Therese and they have two daughters.
Alejandro Carrillo is a fourth-generation rancher, and he is quite familiar with the challenges of running a profitable cattle ranch in the Chihuahuan desert. Because annual precipitation seldom exceeds nine inches, every drop counts when it comes to growing more grasses. Grazing year-round with only sea salt as an input, he is not willing to waste any water in such a brittle environment.
Jared L Talley was born and raised in Southwestern Idaho and now seeks to help rural communities adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, earning his PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State University and his MPA in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management from Boise State University. An environmental philosopher by training and an interdisciplinary scholar in practice, he seeks to better understand how communities relate to the land and how this relationship poses obstacles and opportunities for collaboration and governance. In doing so, he studies the role of science in collaborative policy, the role of place in environmental identity, and the role of the imagination in mediating both. Specifically, he studies grazing management and public land permitting, community-led conservation programs, rural education and entrepreneurship, place-based environmental governance, and the imaginative experience of our natural and built environments — all in the contexts of the intermountain American West.
Adelene is a native of Arkansas and loves exploring the state’s natural trails. Her passion for education and technology led her to earn a master’s in learning systems technology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. With her professional experience managing student/client databases and instructional design, Adelene will bring skill and understanding to her role as Office Manager & Instructional Designer at HMI. Her focus on making education more accessible to diverse communities is evident through her volunteer work as an executive director for a scholarship program and as a member of the student affairs committee. Adelene is devoted to creating educational opportunities that align with HMI’s mission to promote healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities.
