Organic Seed Growers Conference

Sefra Alexandra

Sefra Alexandra – The Seed Huntress – is an ethnobotanist on a perennial quest to preserve the biodiversity of our wild and cultivated lands through seed conservation. Sefra leads The Ecotype Project – amplifying the amount of ecoregionally local native seed available for ecological restoration through the farmer-led Northeast Seed Collective. In 2020 she began BOATanical Expeditions, ‘paddlin’ for the pollinators,’ planting autochthonous species along riparian corridors. ​She started the Southport Globe Onion Festival- reviving the prolific allium heirloom in its origin terroir.​ Sefra has conducted fieldwork around the globe, including fortifying community seed banks on island nations after natural disasters. The Seed Huntress holds her M.A.T. in agroecological education from Cornell University, is the Northeast Bioregional Education Coordinator for the Ecological Health Network, on the steering committee of the Northeast Seed Network, a fellow of the Crop Trust, a WINGS WorldQuest expedition flag carrier & member of the Explorers Club.

Jennifer Bailey

Jennifer Bailey’s lifelong passion for history has led her on a spiritual journey of family, and sharing stories of liberation of the Underground Railroad, and connection with the land. With familial roots in farming from both southwestern Ohio, and southwestern Georgia, Jennifer pays respects to her lineage by lifting up the land, food, and community to better know herself and understand her roots.  

Jennifer grew up closely tied to the land and natural resources on her family’s multi-generational farm where she worked as part of her family-owned and operated Christmas tree farm, serving you-cut fir trees, as well as farming hogs and sweet corn, to the community.  Jennifer worked as an Environmental Educator in the Dominican Republic where she partnered with youth and women’s groups on sustainable community projects with animals, flora, and fauna.

Ken Bezilla

Ken Bezilla has been with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in central Virginia since 2006, growing seed crops and trial crops, and coordinating most of SESE’s seed crop growouts.

Heron Breen

Heron Breen (he/they) resides in Saint Albans, Maine, and grows seed crops in field & gardens across 2 counties. Heron continues a 25+ year career in seed business. Selection work, plant breeding, seed production, as well as giving away food are primary goals each year. As a participant in Seed Worker Organizing https://seedworkers.org/, Heron enjoys the supportive seed community, and building an intentional & more widely understood and visible seed economy.

Dina Brewster

Dina Brewster has been a full-time farmer for nearly 20 years. She founded The Hickories as a one-acre vegetable garden and has overseen the development of new products and new acreage as the farm has grown to a 45 acre certified organic fruit, vegetable, cut flower, livestock, and restoration seed business. Dina served as the Executive Director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (CT NOFA).  While at NOFA, Dina founded The Ecotype Project.  She has since founded the Northeast Seed Collective, a seed company housed at her farm that grows and promotes ecotypic seed for habitat restoration.   Dina believes we have a responsibility to increase the economic vitality of our regional agrarian economy, improve the long-range ecological stewardship of our land and water, and enliven our cultural commitment to farming.

Dan Brisebois

Dan Brisebois has a secret agenda. He wants you to grow seed on your farm! Dan is the author of The Seed Farmer and Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers; and the host of the Seed Farmer podcast. Dan runs the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy and blogs about farming and seeds at www.danbrisebois.com. 

Dan is also a founding farmer at Tourne-Sol co-operative farm in Les Cèdres, Quebec. Tourne-Sol grows organic seeds for an online seed store and a wholesale rack program; and grows organic vegetables for 500 weekly veggie baskets.

Sarah Carden

Sarah Carden joined Farm Action to raise awareness and advocate for policies that meaningfully reform the nation’s food and agriculture system.

Sarah holds a B.A. in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. She has been working on food system reforms for over a decade and brings expertise in local food systems and distribution networks, agriculture, non-profit development, and food entrepreneurship. Sarah has also worked as an organizer on two presidential campaigns and one congressional campaign.

Sarah lives with her husband and their two young children on their organic vegetable farm.

Javier Carrera

Permacultor. Author, educator and activist. Expert in regenerative systems, with emphasis on food systems. Founder and Social Coordinator of the Seed Guardians Network of Ecuador. Editor of Allpa Magazine. Editor in chief, Madre Semilla Educational Platform, Radio Semilla podcast and Tarpuna video series. Research Director of the first Inventory of Food Heritage of Ecuador. Executive Director, Grupo Allpa Foundation.

Ambar Carvallo Lopez

Ambar is a Ph.D. student in the Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics program at UW-Madison, specializing in organic-adapted tomato breeding for the Midwest. Her research centers on enhancing flavor and disease resistance through participatory breeding, engaging farmers in the selection process to better address organic agriculture needs. As part of the TOMI (Tomato Organic Management Improvement) project, she collaborates with research institutions to develop varieties with improved resilience and fruit quality. In partnership with seed companies, she evaluates new molecular markers for resistance to Septoria leaf spot, a common disease in the Upper Midwest. Recently, she completed a 6-month exchange at INRAE, France, gaining expertise in molecular approaches for flavor improvement. Ambar’s work supports sustainable agriculture by developing tomato varieties tailored to the needs of organic farmers and consumers alike.

Kelli Case

Kelli Case, a Citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, serves as Staff Attorney at the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University (IFAI).

Prior to joining the Initiative, Kelli earned her B.S. in Agribusiness from Oklahoma State University and her J.D. from the University of Tulsa. While in law school, she also completed the Certificate in Native American Law program. During her time in school, Kelli clerked for both the Chickasaw and Pawnee Nation court systems where she spent time immersed in tribal codes and working to improve the lives of tribal citizens.

Leeza Chen

Leeza Chen is a seed farmer and traditional plant breeder based in Western North Carolina. She believes deeply in on-farm, regionally adapted seed selection as a tool of social and climate resiliency. It is important to her to honor the legacy of Appalachian seed saving and organizing by promoting education and opportunity for her fellow Southern seed keepers. Leeza has been working with the Utopian Seed Project for over 3 years and is a founding member of the Appalachian Seed Growers Collective.

Laura Collins

Laura Collins is a Certified Organic diversified vegetable grower from the Carolinas.  Being mostly self-taught, she worked under a farmer mentor for several years and has attended dozens of farm conferences and workshops.  She currently leads the vegetable program at Gaia Herbs which provides vegetables to their employees and donates around 9,000 pounds of vegetables annually.

Almendra Cremaschi

Almendra Cremaschi is a researcher and associate professor at the University of San Martín, Argentina, specializing in sustainability transitions and agri-food systems. She co-founded and directs Bioleft, a community-driven laboratory dedicated to open-source seed breeding and exchange. Bioleft aims to democratize plant breeding by supporting participatory practices that involve farmers directly in adapting seeds to meet the demands of diverse, localized conditions. Its co-designed digital platform promotes open science, enabling transparent exchange of data and knowledge. As a member of the Global Open-Source Seeds Initiative, Bioleft operates under principles of seed commons, treating seeds as shared resources rather than proprietary assets. Bioleft’s work is geared toward creating resilient, biodiversity-rich food systems that are adapted to local ecosystems and less reliant on corporate-controlled seed markets. Cremaschi’s work bridges academic research and real-world application, advocating for collaborative approaches to ecological and just agri-food systems.

Julia Dakin

Julia Dakin is the co-founder of Going to Seed, an organization dedicated to shifting agriculture towards adaptation, community and diversity.  For several years she has been working in community-driven projects that build resilient, locally adapted food systems, enhancing community resilience and food diversity.  She is on the Seed Library Network organizing team, and started a community seed library in Northern California.

Michelle Dang

Michelle is the Research Coordinator at the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, a program of SeedChange. In this work, she collaborates the University of British Columbia, farmers, and researchers to run the Canadian Organic Vegetable Improvement Project (CANOVI), a national vegetable variety trial and plant breeding network for organic and ecological vegetable farmers. Through CANOVI, Michelle hopes to develop more capacity to efficiently organize participatory research networks, contextualize agronomic data to be of use/value to farmers and seed growers, and support growers to build skills in variety trialling, seed production, and plant breeding. Outside of this work, Michelle co-runs an urban farm, Xa Lát Farm, specializing in growing flowers and Asian vegetables for local markets. Through her time both in the lab and the field, Michelle is especially passionate about how researchers can support farmers in making agriculture more farmer-led, ecological, sustainable, and accessible. (she/her, Toronto/Tkaronto)

Julie Dawson

Julie Dawson is a Professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, training students in the plant breeding and plant genetics, horticulture, and agroecology graduate fields. Research interests include the use of genetic resources in plant breeding for organic systems and methods for participatory selection and variety development. She is also the state Extension specialist for regional food systems and does applied research for growers serving local food markets. She leads a project called the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, which works with plant breeders to test varieties with farmers, gardeners, chefs and other culinary professionals. She is an academic cooperator with the USDA on the Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, focused on promoting fair competition and innovation in the seed industry.

Carol Deppe

Oregon plant breeder Carol Deppe holds a PhD in Biology/Genetics (Harvard University). “At least I think I have a Phud from Harvard,” Deppe says. “But when I got the diploma it was in Latin, so who knows?” She focuses on breeding plants for superior flavor, organic adaptation, resilience to wild weather and climate change, and human survival for the next thousand years, and in teaching others to do likewise. She has bred 20+ varieties of corn, legumes, and squash, all released as Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) Pledged varieties. Deppe is author of Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving 2nd ed.; The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times; The Tao of Vegetable Gardening; and “Freelance Plant Breeding,” Plant Breeding Reviews (2022). Deppe is Chair of the Board of Directors of OSSI.

Aabir Dey

Aabir Dey is the Director of SeedChange’s Canadian field program, The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security. Aabir developed his passion for seeds while working at Everdale Farm, where he helped Seeds of Diversity Canada grow their Great Canadian Garlic Collection. He completed a Master of Environmental Studies at York University, researching organic seed systems in Ontario, before joining SeedChange. Aabir has been instrumental in shaping and leading the Bauta Initiative’s training, research, and policy programs. Aabir is thrilled to be working with seed producers and farmers all over Canada to advance farmer-led seed systems and support seed sovereignty across the country.

Jim Embry

Sacred Earth Activist
Published with Humans & Nature Press

Jim Embry considers himself Stardust condensed in human form that represents billions of years of Earth’s evolution. As an evolutionary being, his purpose is to contribute to a paradigm shift towards Sacred Earth consciousness and refers to himself as a Sacred Earth Activist. As an activist, Jim has participated in most of the major social justice movements of his era and now believes that the sustainability movement encompasses all the other movements. As founder and director of Sustainable Communities Network, Jim contributes to the theory and practice of sustainable living while cultivating collaborative efforts at the local, national, and international levels with a focus on food systems. 

Jim is at home at every level, whether as a six-time USA delegate to Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Italy, a visitor to Cuba to study organic farming, extensive work in urban agriculture, or planting on his 30-acre farm. Jim maintains that the local food and sustainable agriculture movement is the foundation of a sustainable community. As a scuba diver and photographer, Jim has traveled widely to capture the beauty of the land and oceans. He has exhibited his photos in books, hospitals, galleries, and magazines. Working now on two books, Jim has contributed articles and photographs to We Are Each Other’s Harvest, Sustainable World Source Book, Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, Kentucky African American Encyclopedia, Latino Studies, Biodynamics Journal, African American Heritage Guide, Stella Natura and other publications. Jim believes that we need some big ideas that connect humans in a sacred relationship with the Earth and Cosmos, which will require us to think not just “out of the box” but “out-of-the-barn”.

Steve Etka

Steve is the owner of Etka Consulting, a government relations consulting firm specializing in agriculture and food policy reform. He serves as the Policy Director for several policy-related coalitions, including the National Organic Coalition.   

Prior to forming his consulting business, Steve spent 5½ years on the staff of U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) serving as Deputy Legislative Director, specializing in agriculture, environment, transportation and appropriations matters.   

Steve graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1987. He lives with his husband Troy in Alexandria, Virginia and is the father of three and a grandfather, as well. 

Emily Fratz

Emily Fratz is a PhD student in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University, where she’s currently working on dry bean breeding. Emily has a particular interest in participatory methods and engaging growers in the research process, as well as the intersection of social science and plant breeding research. Emily was previously an organic vegetable farmer and worked in urban agriculture and education.

Edmund Frost

Edmund Frost grows seeds and does research and breeding work at Twin Oaks Seed Farm in Central Virginia. He leads a cooperative retail seed company called Common Wealth Seed Growers, and has grown seeds on contract for various other seed companies since 2008. Disease resistance breeding in cucumbers, squash and melons has been a central focus of his work. He is passionate about contributing to the organic and regional seed movement. Recently this has taken the form of participation in Seed Worker Organizing, and in their project to envision better contract terms and frameworks for seed growers.

Steve Fry

Steve and Suzanne Fry started farming 1/2 acre of certified organic Vegetables and flowers 35 years ago. Today we farm 100+ acres of mixed vegetables, flowers and ancient and heritage grains. We started farming with 5 girls, a 285 Massey and a 4 ft tiller. Our dream was to quit our day job and become a sole source, farm income family. Today we have 2 daughters and son in-law who are on a path to continue the farm. We have added a CSA, Farm Store, Food Hub with local and regional sales. As we continue to supply healthy  nutritious , organic produce, we’ve added heritage and ancient grains to our land rotation. So now we’re milling flour and selling our ancient and heritage grain flour to our farm store and local bakeries.

Pryor Garnett

Pryor Garnett is a beginning farm growing certified organic grains (wheat, rye, triticale, barley, etc.) on a 92 acre farm in Sheridan, Oregon.  Garnetts Red Prairie Farm is located where the Willamette Valley floor begins to rise into the foothills of the Coast Range.  He began farming in 2016 after retiring from practicing patent law for over thirty years, mostly with IBM.  From the beginning he has used only certified organic practices on the farm, and his crops have been certified organic by Oregon Tilth since 2016.  Pryor supports organic farmers and consumers by volunteering with the Organic Farmers Association and the Oregon Organic Coalition, and is a member of the Oregon Farm Bureau.  He regularly meets with elected officials and their staff in Washington, D.C. and Oregon to advocate for the further development of organic agriculture and the organic food system.

Protecting and restoring farmland is critically important – in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and everywhere else.  A farm’s soil is its most important asset, and Garnetts Red Prairie Farm relies on cover cropping, residue retention, minimum tillage, crop rotation and erosion prevention to build soil fertility and resilience.  It is a 2017 Flagship Farm of the Oregon Bee Project, and has 3/4 mile of pollinator-friendly hedgerows as well as extensive Oregon white oak woods, and a year-round creek. Pryor has been an elected director of the Polk Soil and Water Conservation District since 2020, and has advocated for sustained and increased funding of conservation programs.

Rue Genger

Rue Genger is a scientist in the Urban and Regional Food Systems research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They work with the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative to support growers, plant breeders, and chefs in developing and selecting flavorful vegetable varieties adapted to Upper Midwest growing conditions, with the goal of building a resilient regional seed system that serves the needs of Midwest farmers. Rue facilitates the Climate Resilient Organic Vegetable Production (CROVP) community of farmers, researchers and extension educators committed to farmer-led research into reduced tillage and other resilient vegetable production systems.

Helena Gonzales

Helena Gonzales (she/her) graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelors in Plant Science with a focus in genetics, genomics, and propagation. Born and raised in Tucson, she is Hopi and Navajo. Helena has dedicated her life to crop conservation and research to preserve the diversity and the history of heirloom crops. She uses this knowledge at Native Seeds/SEARCH to maintain seeds in the seed bank, work in the Conservation Garden, and process seeds in the Seed Lab.

K Greene

K Greene is a seed being. And so are you. K’s seed journey began twenty years ago when they created the first seed library in a public library. Over time, Greene and their partner Doug Muller turned the library into the Hudson Valley Seed Company — a national seed company focused on the art, culture, and improvement of open-pollinated and organic seed. Greene also created the Seed Growing Program at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub where they partner with Indigenous and cultural organizations to support seed rematriation and sovereignty work including with the Mohawk community in Akwesasne, Jewish Farming Network, Under the Husk, and Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. Along with these seed relationships, Greene is developing a non-binary approach to botany, rooted in queer ecology, to question and reimagine how we relate to plants and participate in generational seed cycles.  Greene continues to teach seed saving skills and enjoys bonding with new plants every season.

Solveig Hanson

Solveig joined Virginia Moore’s Sustainable Cropping Systems Breeding Lab at Cornell University in January 2023, where she coordinates research and outreach for the nationwide Cover Crop Breeding Network. As leader of the CCB Network winter pea breeding program, Solveig coordinates on-farm breeding nurseries and has initiated participatory variety trials on 70 farms and gardens. Solveig received her Ph.D. in Plant Breeding Plant Genetics from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020, where she conducted genetic, genomic, and participatory research focused on flavor in table beet. In a subsequent postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia, she coordinated a Canada-wide farmer variety trialing network and led participatory breeding efforts in carrot.

Katie Hastings

Katie Hastings is the Wales Coordinator for the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme. Her work to build a more diverse and resilient seed system includes supporting Wales’s first ever seed selling cooperative, the Wales Seed Hub. Katie works with a group of farmers to revive rare Welsh oats, in particular, the almost extinct Welsh black oat. Having worked as a market gardener and a community food organiser, Katie is passionate about diverse seed being the foundation of a healthy food system.

William Hazzard

William Hazzard is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Davis in the Horticulture and Agronomy Graduate Group. His research primarily focuses on epigenetic disorders in almonds. He is also the project lead for the zinnia breeding program as part of the Student Organic Plant Breeding and Education project, a student lead breeding program. Before starting graduate school, William worked as a legislative aide to Senator Maria Cantwell, where he specialized in agriculture policy. He is a graduate of Colgate University with a BA in French and Political Science.

Samantha Hilborn-Naluai

Samantha (Sam) is the New Mexico Organic Farm Consultant at the Rodale Institute, helping farmers to become certified organic and provide organic education across the Southwest. She grew up in New Mexico and is from the Pueblos of Laguna and Acoma. Samantha has a M.S. in Horticulture and Agronomy with a specialization in plant breeding from UC Davis. She is based out of northern New Mexico.

Dan Hobbs

Dan Hobbs is a fifth generation Coloradan and a first generation farmer. He worked with the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union as a rural cooperative development specialist for many years and grows certified organic heritage grains, legumes, open pollinated seeds, varietal garlic and chile peppers on 30 irrigated acres in McElmo Canyon, located in the Four Corners region. He and partner, Nanna Meyer, operate a vertically integrated enterprise that includes seed cleaning, milling and baking in Cortez, Colorado. Their business is Pueblo Seed and Food Company.

Beth Hoinacki

Beth Hoinacki lives at Goodfoot Farm, a certified Biodynamic and organic diversified market farm in the Coastal foothills of the mid-Willamette Valley, where she farms full time and wholeheartedly.  Over the past decade the farm has taught her to pay as much attention to the people with whom she works as she does the farm and the market they serve.  It is her belief that focusing on the relationships between and among the people in our farm and food systems is critical for success in playing the long game of supporting Life on Earth.

Chris Homanics

A sense of childhood spirit has led Chris Homanics to fully embrace the diverse mosaic of experiences the natural world offers. Searching for a year-around sustainable diet, he has traveled collecting and preserving a menagerie of bioregionally adapted fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

A plant breeder at heart, he is working with a wide variety of crop species including colorful potatoes, high-protein orange corn, perennial onions, perennial kale, apples, pears, peaches, chestnuts, walnuts… Head, Hands, Heart Nursery and Seed curates a favorite selection of these.

Vice President of the North American Fruit Explorers (nafex.org) and a co-founder of the Agrarian Sharing Network (agrariansharing.net). He has spoke on a variety of topics related to fruit exploring, agriculture, horticulture, plant breeding, wildcrafting, and more. He is a devoted husband to his wife Elham and his two children Lilia and Rosemary.

The only viable future is to be in full relationship with the land.

Kristina (Kiki) Hubbard

Kristina (Kiki) Hubbard is an Outreach Program Manager in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her position supports UW-Madison’s academic collaboration with the USDA’s Farmer Seed Liaison initiative, which aims to help growers navigate a complex seed system, including connecting them with antitrust regulators, intellectual property administrators, and other federal partners. Kiki has more than 20 years of experience in seed policy as an organizer, researcher, and writer on projects involving antitrust, biotechnology, intellectual property, and organic regulation. Before joining UW-Madison, Kiki held positions with Organic Seed Alliance, National Family Farm Coalition, Center for Rural Affairs, Organization for Competitive Markets, and other agricultural groups. She received an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and is currently an affiliate faculty member in the same program. Kiki lives in Missoula, Montana, with her husband and son.

Andrew Hutchison

Andrew Hutchison is the James Beard Semi-Finalist owner and head baker of Madison Sourdough, dedicated to crafting bread and pastry from regional small grains. 

Katie Jagger

Katie Jagger co-owns and manages Saltwater Seeds, a small regional seed company specializing in open-pollinated, certified organic seeds adapted to the maritime northwest.  Previously Katie ran a small CSA farm in Rhode Island for ten years where she saved seed and adapted favorite varieties to the farms production system. In 2016 she moved to Western WA and after a short stint at Nash’s Organic Produce growing seed, she worked at OSA’s research farm for four seasons before starting Saltwater Seeds with business partners Joanne Pontrello and Sam Scheidt. Katie lives and farms in Sequim, WA

Paulina Jenney

Paulina Jenney is an Outreach Program Manager with the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, where she supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Seed Liaison Initiative. She is co-author of USDA’s 2023 report, More and Better Choices for Farmers: Promoting Fair Competition and Innovation in Seeds and Other Agricultural Inputs. Born and raised in the desert southwest, Paulina earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and creative writing from the University of Arizona before spending several years learning about traditional and small scale agricultural techniques from practitioners around the world. She has worked for the Institute of the Environment, Conservation International – Perú, and taught English and environmental stewardship as a Fulbright grantee in northern Spain. She earned her M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana, where she managed the PEAS Farm seed garden and studied plant breeder perspectives on intellectual property rights.

Joel Johnson

Joel Johnson serves as the Farm Manager at Native Seeds/SEARCH—a nonprofit seedbank based in Tucson, AZ that grows,  preserves, and distributes over 1,000 varieties of arid-adapted crop seeds and wild crop relatives. Joel was born and raised in Tucson and studied Sustainable Agriculture at Messiah College. He has led Native Seeds/SEARCH’s in-house seed production and farm expansion since 2020. He also provides writing and editing support for human-scale farms and farmers around the country.

Erica Kempter

Erica Kempter has been an organic gardener & farmer for nearly 30 years. She is also an educator, food justice advocate, seed steward and plant breeder. She is co-owner, of Nature & Nurture Seeds, a farm-based seed company located in Ann Arbor, Michigan that provides quality, resilient, and adapted seeds for diverse farms and gardens in the Midwest and North. Erica’s biggest passion is breeding tomatoes and she loves to witness (and taste!) the magic that unfolds though her plant breeding goals are more practical – to breed open-pollinated, vigorous, flavorful and disease resistant tomatoes for the Midwest. 

Ryan King

Ryan King is a Biological Science Technician in plant genetics at the USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, OR. He has a B.S. and M.S. from Oregon State University’s Department of Horticulture, where he studied organic plant breeding with Dr. Jim Myers. Ryan is passionate about conservation of plant biodiversity, plant breeding and genetics, seeds, native plants, weird fruits, organizing community events and connecting with fellow plant enthusiasts, and gardening with his family.

Sarah Kleeger

Sarah Kleeger has worked on organic farms since 2003. In 2006, she & her husband, Andrew Still, started The Seed Ambassadors Project, promoting seed stewardship locally and internationally through seed swaps, seed saving workshops, and the distribution of rare and heritage varieties of seeds. In 2009 they started Adaptive Seeds, a farm-based seed company, as a way to further distribute the varieties they had collected with The Seed Ambassadors Project. Adaptive Seeds offers organic, open-pollinated, diverse and resilient seed varieties, and we grow more than 75% of the varieties we sell. Sarah’s roles at Adaptive Seeds include management of both the fields & the finances, and she is happiest when she is tending crops or hanging out with her cats. Adaptive Seeds is located near Sweet Home, Oregon, two hours south of Portland.

Nate Kleinman

Nate Kleinman is a farmer, plant breeder, activist, and co-founder of Experimental Farm Network (EFN), a Philadelphia-based non-profit started in 2013 to facilitate collaborative research in sustainable agriculture and plant breeding, especially toward the development of perennial staple crops for carbon sequestration. A founding member of Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance (UCFA), he serves as co-coordinator of UCFA’s Seed and Farming Operations Working Group and its Policy Working Group. Nate is an executive board member with Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP) and a technical service provider with the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey (NOFA-NJ). He is also a founding community partner of The Seed Farm at Princeton University. Through working with perennial crops, he aims to help shift our farming system from being a driver of climate change to being a weapon against it. Nate lives and farms on Nanticoke & Lenape land in southern New Jersey.

Veronica Limeberry

Veronica Limeberry is a postdoctoral research fellow through an NSF-SBE grant examining community food systems, especially with Indigenous and low-income rural peoples, in the desert southwest and central Appalachia. She has conducted research on agrobiodiversity’s role in advancing territorial sovereignty with communities in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, India, and the US. Veronica has consulted for policies supporting farmers’ rights and Indigenous food systems at the global, national, and local levels. She has long advocated for food sovereignty in Appalachia (and beyond), sits on the board for Highlander Research and Education Center in East TN, and holds a PhD in International Relations from American University School of International Service. She has published research in Frontiers of Sustainable Food Systems, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, and Droits & Cultures.

Tessa Lowinske Desmond 

Tessa Lowinske Desmond is a scholar and a farmer.  She is a research specialist focusing on food and agriculture at Princeton University in the School of Public and International Affairs.  Desmond directs The Seed Farm at Princeton, co-leads the Princeton Food Project, and serves as Co-Principal Investigator for the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project.  Desmond’s work is interdisciplinary, using the tools of oral history and community-engaged methods to document the ways in which food and farming serve as carriers of culture and to understand the role that food has played in racial, ethnic, and social identity for generations.  Much of Desmond’s current work deals specifically with seeds, seed stories, and the way that narratives attached to seeds carry history and important cultural lessons. 

Justice Madden

Justice Madden is a storyteller, facilitator, and organizer focused on preserving Black agrarian traditions, uplifting narratives of resilience, and building community capacity through land-based practices. An active member of the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, she also previously served as the Graduate Program Manager for the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project. Currently, she works as the Project Manager at the Center for Cultural Landscapes at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, where she supports the Mellon-funded Out(sider) Preservation Initiative.

Cathleen McCluskey

Cathleen McCluskey is the Advocacy & Communications director for Organic Seed Alliance. She leads the organization’s legal and cultural advocacy work developing policies that support organic agriculture and farmers’ rights to save seed. Cathleen co-directs OSA’s State of Organic Seed project and leads federal policy initiatives targeting Congress and federal agencies. Her research focuses on seed systems, intellectual property, market concentration, germplasm management and diversity, data access and transparency, and democratization of science and knowledge. Cathleen holds a PhD in Environment and Resources and an MS in Agroecology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Evalisa McIllfaterick

Evalisa works with plants and seeds in her role as a market gardener and seed producer at Root Cellar Gardens.  What began as a desire to support food security in her community has grown and evolved (thanks in large part to seeds) into a deep appreciation of and curiosity about the role that seeds play in our lives.  Most recently this curiosity led her to complete a Master’s thesis exploring the way that the seed-human relationships impact health through their impacts on individuals, societies and environments. Evalisa is currently engaged in multiple collabortive landrace breeding projects.

Dr. Brigid Meints

Dr. Brigid Meints is an Assistant Professor of Practice and the Organic Grains and Pulses Extension Specialist with the OSU Center for Small Farms & Community Food Systems. She is interested in organic weed and pest management, breeding for organic systems, and working with growers to add a value-added small grain crop to their rotation. Additionally, her research focuses on breeding multi-use naked barley for organic systems and early maturing dry beans for western Oregon. She grew up in Corvallis, OR and developed a love for plants at a young age. She earned a BA from Scripps College in Anthropology and Gender & Women’s Studies but found her way back to plants after graduation when she began working for the barley breeding program at OSU. She earned her MS from OSU in Crop Science with a focus in Plant Breeding & Genetics and completed her PhD in Crop Science at Washington State University.

Anna Bonner Mieritz

Anna Bonner Mieritz is a designer, facilitator, and life-long gardener. As a co-founder of the nonprofit Going to Seed, she organizes their Seed Share Program, which gathers seeds from growers around the country, packages them into genetically diverse mixes by species, and distributes them to jumpstart crop adaptation projects. She lives in Moss Beach, California, where she also volunteers in the food distribution programs at Coastside Hope, and the HEAL Project educational farm.

Frank Morton

Frank and Karen Morton grow seed in Philomath, OR and operate Wild Garden Seed, serving gardeners, farmers, and seed catalogs for 30 years. Their own catalog sells only seed they grow themselves, and features original farm-bred varieties of vegetables and flowers, as well as heirlooms and commercial workhorse varieties.

Basel Musharbash

Basel is an antitrust and trade regulation attorney with a passion for building stronger towns and vibrant rural economies.

Basel’s experience includes representing farmers in litigation against meat processors under the Packers and Stockyards Act, defending workers and entrepreneurs against employers who seek to enforce illegal noncompete agreements, and advocating for the interests of farmers, small businesses, workers and consumers in proceedings at the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Basel is also the author of the landmark report on the state of competition in America’s agriculture system, “”Kings Over the Necessaries of Life: Monopolization and the Elimination of Competition in America’s Agriculture System,” which was commissioned and published by Farm Action in 2024.

LuAnna Nesbitt

LuAnna Nesbitt, an Appalachian agrarian and community organizer, is passionate about revolutionizing regional food systems. Having earned a master’s degree in Food Systems from the University of Vermont, she combines her regional seed research with practical experience. Currently, she holds the position of Project Manager for the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project and Co-Farm Manager at the Utopian Seed Project. Through these roles, LuAnna actively contributes to the preservation of Appalachian agricultural heritage and the safeguarding of regional agro-biodiversity.

Marissa Nix

Marissa Nix is a Research Specialist in the Urban and Regional Food System Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, she works on participatory plant breeding alongside plant breeders, seed companies, farmers, gardeners, and chefs to develop region-specific varieties that deliver great flavor. Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, Marissa discovered her passion for plants while volunteering at a community garden. With a background in genetics, she believes plant breeding is important to adapt to climate change and provide sustainable, organic food for her community.

Rich Pratt

Rich Pratt is a professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University. He also serves as the Director of the Cropping Systems Research Innovation Program. His current research emphasis is on heat and drought-tolerant cover crops, participatory plant breeding, and the exploration and collection of wild bean germplasm.

Laura Roser

Laura Roser (she/her) is a staff coordinator for the Student Collaborative Organic Plant breeding Education (SCOPE) program, a student-led collaborative of faculty and student plant breeders based out of the UC Davis Student Farm that works with local organic growers on improving crop varieties for organic farming systems in California. She manages the internship program and the zinnia, tomato, pepper, celtuce, and wheat breeding programs. She graduated from UC Davis in 2019 with a B.S. in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. Outside of work, she loves to knit and crochet!

Chris Smith

Chris Smith is executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing nonprofit working to celebrate food and farming. Within this work, Smith collaborates on the Heirloom Collard Project, hosts a seasonal Trial to Table event series, and publishes Crop Stories, a crop-specific multimedia project. Smith’s book, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020, and he is the co-host of “The Okra Pod Cast.” In 2023 Smith received the Organic Educator Award from the Organic Growers School and was named a Champion of Conservation by Garden & Gun. Find more information at utopianseed.org

Andrew Still

Andrew Still began working on organic farms in 2003. In 2006, he & his wife, Sarah Kleeger, started The Seed Ambassadors Project to promote seed stewardship locally and internationally through seed swaps, seed saving workshops, and the distribution of rare and heritage varieties of seeds. In 2009 they started Adaptive Seeds, a farm-based seed company, as a way to further distribute the varieties they had collected with The Seed Ambassadors Project. Adaptive Seeds offers organic, open-pollinated, diverse and resilient seed varieties for ecologically-minded farmers, gardeners, and seed savers. Andrew’s roles at Adaptive Seeds include management of both the seed collection and plant breeding projects.

Kristin Swoszowski-Tran

Kristin Swoszowski-Tran is the owner/operator of Ledoux Grange, an organic-certified, diversified farm high in the mountains of Mora, New Mexico, raising produce and yak. A multiple grant recipient, she explores novel methods and is a dedicated, intentional producer for local food systems and regenerative agriculture.   Kristin is a farmer/producer member of the Southwest Grain Collaborative who grows/trials grains, pulses and landrace seeds.

Brise Tencer

Brise Tencer has dedicated 25+ years to advancing organic food policy, farming, and research. As the Executive Director of OFRF Brise oversees the organization’s research, education, and advocacy initiatives, focusing on supporting farmers and driving policies that champion organic agriculture. 

Earlier in her career at OFRF (2000-2006), Brise helped create the Organic Agricultural Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives and secure the recognition of organic farming as a “good farming practice” under federal crop insurance programs. She has also served as Director of Policy and Programs at California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and as a senior lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, where she led campaigns linking organic farming to climate resilience and public health.

Brise has served on the boards of several organizations committed to sustainable agriculture, including the National Organic Coalition and the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.

Don Tipping

Since 1997 Don Tipping has been farming and offering hands on, practical workshops at Seven Seeds Farm, a small, certified organic family farm in the Siskiyou Mountains of SW Oregon that produces fruits, vegetables, seeds, flowers and herbs, while raising sheep, poultry and people. The farm has been designed to function as a self-contained, life regenerating organism with waste products being recycled and feeding other elements of the system.  Lauded as one of the best examples of a small Permaculture farms in the northwest by many, Seven Seeds helps to mentor new farmers through internships and workshops. In 2009 we began Siskiyou Seeds, a bioregional organic seed company that grows and stewards a collection of over 700 open pollinated flower, vegetable and herb seeds and is constantly breeding new varieties that we distribute nationally.  Siskiyou Seeds produces about 50% of the seed at our home farm and then sources the remainder from a network of organic seed growers throughout the PNW.

Don is active in the Seed Stewardship movement and educates regionally on seed saving through the Seed Academy, the Student Organic Seed Symposium, Seed Schools and numerous conferences. Don serves on the board of the community development non-profit, A Greater Applegate, the Open Source Seed Initiative and educational organization, Sanctum.

Tim Vos

Tim Vos made his living as a working farmer growing certified organic vegetables for many years. He has a PhD in Environmental Studies/Agroecology from UC Santa Cruz and taught classes on the principles of sustainable agriculture, practical farming and regenerative-organic production methods, and environmental ethics. Tim is the managing director and agroecology specialist for the Southwest Grain Collaborative.

Weijia Wang

Weijia Wang is the postdoc researcher and project lead on the current CANOVI project, which aims to help strengthen seed security in Canada and promote locally adapted organic vegetable varieties. Wang holds a PhD degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Michigan State University.

Daniel Wanjama

Daniel Wanjama founded Seed Savers Network in Kenya in 2019.  Since then, the SSN has grown to more than 87,000 members and established 76 community seed banks.

I have a strong faith in traditional knowledge ability to provide solutions to challenges we are facing in farmers managed seed systems and organic seeds. I am a member of IFOAM SEED PLATFORM, Steering committee member of Global Open-Source Seed Initiative and vice president of the Intercontinental Network of Organic Farmers Organizations. After working more than 20 years in the agriculture sector, I have come to realize that we can not achieve food security without food sovereignty, and we can’t have food sovereignty without seed sovereignty. I am committed to improving access to organic seeds by farmers in Kenya and Africa at large given that there are no organic seed companies in the region.

Halee Wepking

Halee Wepking and her husband John own Meadowlark Organics & Meadowlark Community Mill in Ridgeway, WI. Their team manages 1,000 acres of diversified field crops and cattle, and operates a stone mill which sources grain from fellow organic farmers to be processed and distributed regionally. Their focus is to create direct grain markets, helping farmers maximize profitability and keep their grains within the foodshed.

Jared Zystro

Jared Zystro is Organic Seed Alliance’s research and education director. He has an M.S. and Ph.D. in plant breeding and plant genetics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he studied efficient methods of developing new organic sweet corn varieties. Jared has worked in the organic seed industry for over 15 years, managing seed production at two farms and conducting research and education projects with OSA. He currently manages OSA’s regional development in California, conducts participatory breeding projects and variety trials, and teaches farmers about seed production and plant breeding at workshops, conferences, and field days. He lives in the coastal town of Arcata, CA, with his wife and son.