Michael Bredeson,
Project Coordinator, North Central SARE
Dr. Mike Bredeson has been with Ecdysis Foundation since day one. He currently holds the title of research agroecologist. Mike, a farm kid from central Minnesota grew up an avid outdoorsman spending every waking second in the field or on the water. It was the combination of passions, agriculture, and natural resources, which propelled Mike into an education on managing farmland using ecological principles. An internship with Dr. Jonathan Lundgren solidified Mike’s interest in insects, biodiversity conservation, and regenerative ag research. From that day forth Mike has been peeling back layers of detritus on farms all over the world playing witness to the immense power of functional working ecosystems.
Gabe Brown,
Understanding Ag
Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement which focuses on the regeneration of our resources.
Gabe, along with his wife Shelly, and son Paul, own and operate Brown’s Ranch, a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota. The ranch consists of several thousand acres of native perennial rangeland along with perennial pastureland and cropland. Their ranch focuses on farming and ranching in nature’s image.
The Browns holistically integrate their grazing and no-till cropping systems, which include a wide variety of cash crops, multi-species cover crops along with all natural grass finished beef and lamb. They also raise pastured laying hens, broilers and swine. This diversity and integration has regenerated the natural resources on the ranch without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides.
The Browns are part owners of a state inspected abattoir which allows them to direct market their products. They believe that healthy soil leads to clean air, clean water, healthy plants, animals, and people.
Over 2,000 people visit the Brown’s Ranch annually to see this unique operation. They have had visitors from all fifty states and twenty-four foreign countries.
Gabe and Brown’s Ranch have received many forms of recognition for their work, including a Growing Green award from the Natural Resource Defense Council, an Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and a Zero-Till Producer of the Year Award, to name a few. Gabe has also been named one of the twenty-five most influential agricultural leaders in the United States.
Gabe recently authored the book, “Dirt to Soil, One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture.”
He is a partner, along with Ray Archuleta, Shane New, and Dr. Allen Williams, in Understanding Ag LLC. He is also an instructor for Soil Health Academy, which focuses on teaching others the power and importance of healthy functioning ecosystems.
Roger Gussiaas,
Healthy Oil Seeds
Roger Gussiaas is the President and Owner of Healthy Oilseeds, LLC in Carrington, ND which he started in 2002. Healthy Oilseeds processes specialty oilseeds including flaxseed, hempseed and borage. This includes cold press expelling, milling, sifting and roasting. Healthy Oilseeds has done business in 22 countries and 49 states.
Roger started farming in 1979 and in later years farmed more than 5000 acres. Throughout those years he raised 24 different crops including growing hempseed for grain and CBD. Roger has a range of expertise as a farmer, business owner, producer, and exporter of US grown oilseeds
Roger has served on the North Dakota Grain Growers board of directors 1986-1992, Spring Wheat Bakers board of directors 1993-1996, American Renewable Oil Association board of directors and president 1992-1994, AgGrow Oils board member and vice chairman 1995- 1996, Communicating for Agriculture board of directors 1997-2014, North Dakota District Export Council board member 2008-present, AmeriFlax board member 2015-present, Foster County commissioner 2014, North American Industrial Hemp Council board member 2018-present.
Roger was recognized as the 1992 North Dakota Outstanding Young Farmer, the 1993 National Outstanding Young Farmer, and the 2010 North Dakota Exporter of the year.
Roger attended Mayville State University and is a 2016 graduate of Texas A&M TEPAP (The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers).
Roger continues to want to serve in his local community as well as share his expertise and passion with those wanting to learn more about hemp agriculture, processing, and marketing.
Erin Gaugler,
Gaugler Farm & Ranch
Erin Gaugler grew up on a farm and ranch in southwest North Dakota. Erin is in the process of transitioning back to the farm and ranch. Currently, she works as a rangeland research specialist with North Dakota State University, while also working toward a Ph.D in rangeland management. Her research focuses on the integrated management of cropping systems, natural resources, livestock and economics. She owns a small herd of cattle and sheep and also manages cropland acres for forage production, soil health and pollinator habitat.
Burton Johnson,
Project Coordinator, North Central SARE
Clair Keene,
Assistant Professor/Agronomist, NDSU
She delivers Extension education and conducts research that allows North Dakota producers to improve cereal grain and field corn production on their farms. She also conducts research on cereals as forage crops or as cover crops in crop rotations.
Keene earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and Spanish from Iowa State University and earned her doctorate in agronomy from Pennsylvania State University.
Prior to joining the department, Keene was the NDSU Extension specialist in cropping systems at the Williston Research Extension Center. While there, she conducted research on grain intercropping with chickpea and flax; worked on pipeline and saline seep reclamation; evaluated Kernza, a new perennial small grain, for its suitability to North Dakota; and supported county Extension agents in northwest North Dakota.
Ted Matthews,
Director of MN Rural Mental Health
Ted Matthews is a mental health practitioner with over 30 years of experience in counseling in rural areas. His focus for the past 2 decades has been farmer mental health support. He has been the director of mental health services during 5 natural disasters. Matthews provides outreach training and public speaking related to farm stressors, nation wide. He also has extensive counseling experience in the areas of PTSD, crisis intervention, family issues, suicidology and domestic abuse. Featured on the Huffington Post, MPRNews, CNN, AgriNews, Successful Farming, Prairie Farmer and many others, Ted offers his expertise to help the generation population to better understand the farming culture.
Miranda Meehan,
NDSU Assistant Professor & Leader of the Livestock & Environmental Stewardship Program
Leader of the Livestock & Environmental Stewardship Program. Member of the NRM and Livestock program teams within ANR. Extension programming focused on the areas of environmental management and stewardship including livestock, range and grazing management, water quality, reclamation, and environmental policy. Her research interests are focused on environmental stewardship and livestock-environmental interactions including range and riparian ecology, grazing management, integrated crop-livestock systems, water quality, reclamation.
Kenneth Meter,
MPA, President
Ken Meter is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the U.S., integrating market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns. Meter holds 47 years of experience in inner-city and rural community capacity building.
His local economic analyses have promoted local food networks in 140 regions in 40 states, two provinces, and three tribal nations. He developed a $9.85-milllion plan for local food investment for the state of South Carolina, and completed similar studies for Hawai’i, Alaska, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and Minnesota. Three of these were commissioned by state departments of health. He researched the economic impacts of institutional food purchasing for the CDC and the Illinois Public Health Institute, and developed strategic regional food plans for Kansas City, Kansas; Maricopa County, Arizona; Metro Nashville; the San Luis Valley of Colorado; Polk County, Wisconsin; Great Falls, Montana; Central Louisiana; the ArkLaTex region near Shreveport; Northeast Indiana; suburban Denver; rural North Dakota; the Rappahannock-Rapidan Region of Virginia; the Lakes Region in Maine; Lewiston-Auburn, Maine; and Spokane, Washington.
Meter consulted with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service and Colorado State University to help write a toolkit for measuring economic impacts of local food development. He is currently one of 3 co-editors of a forthcoming international book covering food system assessments to be published by Routledge (UK). Meter is also a member of the International Economic Development Council, and has presented at several annual meetings. He has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Minnesota.
Krysti Mikkonen,
NPSAS Board Vice President
Krysti Mikkonen will be sharing tips and strategies for marketing your farm online as well as the why and how of it all. She has been in marketing for more than 25 years and digital marketing since 2005. She helps small to medium-sized businesses in various industries with their websites and will also help with ideas and strategies for paid and social media marketing for their business. Mikkonen has owned a digital marketing business first as a franchise known as WSI and now as an independent consulting agency called Rural Gold. The Mikkonen Family has been certified and farming organically since 1989. If she’s not working with her own clients, you wouldn’t likely find Krysti driving the tractors or combines due to her allergies. She helped more with the marketing and family side of things. As two of her kids come back and take over as the 4th generation in the operation, you’ll find Krysti helping to post some pictures and videos of the working on at the farm on the Mikkonen Organic Facebook or Instagram pages.
Glen Rabenberg,
Soil Expert & Organic Farmer
Glen Rabenberg is an internationally known speaker, soil expert, CEO, and organic farmer. His areas of expertise are soil remediation, high-quality crop production, organic farming practices, and animal health. He explains through storytelling and humor how simply correcting the cause can decrease a farmer’s input costs, improve crop quality, build soil resiliency, and restore the agro-ecosystem.
Glen is often called on to speak at industry events to present on the subject of soil compaction, water penetration, organic weed control, crop quality, and animal health. He frequently speaks at the ACRES USA annual conference – the largest agro-ecological conference in the United States.
Prior to becoming involved in soil restoration, Glen’s journey began in the animal pharmaceutical industry. Many of the diseases he was employed to treat were the result of nutritional deficiencies from the grains and forages the animals were consuming. Glen has proven that by increasing the oxygen content of the soil and building the carbon content of the plant, we can correct the cause of most agricultural problems rather than react to their symptoms.
Glen maintains his third-generation organic farm in Bancroft, SD. He is CEO of Soil Works LLC, extensively travels the world speaking on soil restoration, and is the innovator behind GSR Calcium.
Kendall Swanson,
NDSU Professor
Kendall’s program of teaching and research focuses on improving the efficiency of feed utilization and reducing the environmental impact of beef cattle production systems, better-defining nutrient metabolism of gut tissues and the whole animal, determining if the expression of biologically important proteins can be altered through dietary manipulation or animal selection and if altered expression influences production efficiency, examining the influences of diet and management systems on feeding behavior, and assessing alternative feeding programs to reduce feed costs in feedlot cattle, backgrounding cattle, or wintering beef cow feeding programs. His aim has been to develop a broad and integrated research program to examine both basic and applied research questions with the goal of improving the efficiency of beef cattle production.
Russel Tweiten,
Vice President, Succession & Retirement Planning
As Vice-President of Agribusiness Consulting, Russ helps families work through the complex issues of estate planning, entity planning, and farm transition. He also helps mentor and monitor the process of planning for retirement – constructing a detailed plan based on the goals and needs of each individual. Russ was raised in the Fargo area and holds a B.S. Degree in Agricultural Economics from NDSU. He is a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor (CTFA) and a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC). Russ is also registered with the NDSU Extension Service as a Certified Farm/Ranch Succession Coordinator. He has been in the financial services business for over
20 years. Prior to AgCountry, Russ worked for two local Trust companies as a Vice President and Trust Officer. Russ speaks regularly on the topic of Farm and Ranch Succession Planning. He lives outside of Davenport, ND and has two children.