Description
Notes for attendees:
- This will be a physical activity outside on farm grounds, and DIRT is involved! Wear appropriate footwear and outerwear.
- This class is not recommended for kids in middle school or younger for content comprehension.
- Our Farm Store will be open 10am-5pm. When attending classes, you will receive a 5% discount in the Farm Store & Butchery!
Featured Speakers & Guides:
Jake Hagedorn
Jake is an assistant professor of Environmental Studies at UNC Asheville. He received his BS in Environmental Studies from UNC Asheville, MS in Geosciences from Pennsylvania State University and PhD in Environmental Science from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He teaches soil science, agriculture and energy courses at UNC Asheville. His research focuses on assessing how farm management decisions and best management practices impact water, soil, and air quality. Understanding the complex role soil has in the biogeochemical nutrient cycling is essential for examining environmental concepts like pollution tradeoffs or soil carbon sequestration potential. He also loves chatting about tiny houses.
Virginia Hamilton
Virginia is our Farm Director here at the home of the brand in Fairview. She received her BS in Environmental Studies from Warren Wilson College and her MS in Land Resources & Environmental Science from Montana State University. Prior to completing her MS, she was the assistant farm manager at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC for five years. She is interested in the ecology of working lands and any and all opportunities to invite landowners and community members to participate in the scientific process. She believes that working farms and forests are the key to thriving and resilient rural communities that are poised to support the communities around them. Virginia also spearheads our Ecological Outcome Verification efforts with the Savory Institute.
About the Savory Institute
The Savory Institute’s mission is to facilitate the large-scale regeneration of the world’s grasslands and the livelihoods of their inhabitants great and small, through holistic land management. Savory Institute is working in collaboration with research institutions and partners, to measure the outcomes of managing holistically, by monitoring the health of ecosystem processes, levels of permanent soil carbon, quality of life of the people, as well as financial vitality. Hickory Nut Gap is a verified Savory Hub as of 2021- to equip our partner farmers, local farmers, ranchers, and pastoralist communities with the tools and knowledge to regenerate grasslands in a localized context. To learn more about the Savory Institute, click here.
