Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment is proud to have collaborated with Why Regenerative, an organization that amplifies the voices of key leaders in regenerative agriculture, at not one but two recent conferences in the Northeast. Managing Director of Programs Ellen Griswold was a panelist at the RegenerativeNYC conference in late April where she joined Christa Barfield of FarmerJawn; Zoraida Lopez-Diago of Glynwood Center; and Dominique Mailloux of Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York to speak about the impact and future of community farm centers like Wolfe’s Neck Center.
“Having an open conversation with other regional farm centers was truly inspiring,” Ellen shared. “As place-based organizations we are uniquely situated to build farmer trust, provide experiential education, and experiment and take risks. That’s how we build knowledge, build markets, and build public understanding of the importance of regenerative agriculture in food systems.”
Just this past week, Executive Director Dave Herring went to Rhode Island for another Why Regenerative event. Rhode to Regenerative was focused in part on financing regenerative agriculture projects and market transformation. “It was great to see people coming together to share about everything from financing to technical assistance to scientific data,” Herring says, “all revolving around advancing regenerative agriculture and what it’s going to take to get us from here to there.”
During the conference Herring connected with Ocean Hour Farm, doing innovative work around monitoring ecosystem and biodiversity impacts of regenerative agriculture. He met Woody Tasch of Slow Money, who is inspiring for pioneering “social impact investing specifically around the food movement and trying to find ways to get more capital into the food and farming sector,” Herring says. “And Alex Sterling from Turtle Island Community Capital focuses primarily around BIPOC farmers with this particular focus on Indigenous farmers and getting capital into their communities, farm businesses and land conservation efforts.”
Overall, the Why Regenerative events have left us inspired by the rigor and vision that colleagues across the regenerative movement are bringing to investing in and measuring impact. The next step is to constantly assess how Wolfe’s Neck Center is advancing this work for farmers, communities and the environment across the region.
“Are we making progress and creating space for more life to exist?” Herring asks. “At the end of the day, that’s the point of regenerative agriculture and what we do here: How much life can this land support?”
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