Farm economics with Mark Shepard and Michael Ableman: Expert panel 5

Welcome to the fifth of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session, I hosted a discussion on farm business finances with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got two of my favorite voices on the subject of farm economics and business advice to talk about how managing the whole ecosystem of their farms has saved them money and improved the profitability of their businesses. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our two panelists Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Michael Ableman: is a farmer, author, photographer and urban and local food systems advocate who has been farming organically since the early 1970′s and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. MIchael is the author of four trade published books: From the Good Earth, On Good Land, Fields of Plenty, and most recently Street Farm; Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.restorationag.com/ http://michaelableman.com/ Check out previous Expert Panel discussions https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/ https://regenerativeskills.com/exploring-regenerative-fashion-expert-panel-3/ https://regenerativeskills.com/the-potential-of-agroforestry-expert-panel-2/