Expo Speaker Schedule and Bios

Christine is the legal services and policy manager for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which advocates for farmers, homesteaders, artisans, and cottage food makers to produce and market the food they want. Her workshop will focus on success stories and explore ways to navigate the food regulatory landscape.

Helen is a professor at the University of Guadalajara and a promoter of urban agriculture. She has experience in therapeutic horticulture projects with men and women inmates and children with disabilities. She is also a founding member of the network of seed guardians of western Mexico. Since 2016, she has been involved in organizing seed festivals, workshops, and seed exchanges. Since 2019, she has participated on a team of researchers focused on promoting a move to sustainable agriculture practices in the South Coast region of Jalisco, with the aim of reducing the presence of pesticides in the region’s child population through access to an agroecological diet.

Mitch is a writer, vegetable gardener, and passionate advocate for heirloom seeds. His forthcoming book, The Seed Hunter: Discover the World’s Most Unusual Heirloom Plants will be released in October 2024. Follow him on Instagram@mitch_grows.

Join gardening expert John Kohler and long-time medical doctor Dr. Jeff Pierce for an enlightening talk on transforming your garden into a powerful medicine cabinet. Learn doctor-approved strategies for growing, preparing, and eating nutrient-dense plants to prevent and reverse disease. Discover how integrating these practices can significantly improve your health and wellness, reducing or even eliminating the need for conventional drugs.

Dr. Jeff Pierce is a board-certified family and lifestyle medicine physician and a volunteer master gardener. He teaches about the power of growing an edible garden to help prevent and treat chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. He and his family enjoy working in and eating from their urban food forest in Sonoma County.

Rachel is a journalist and the founder of Kids’ Right to Know, a non-profit organization based in Canada and focused on education and policy change regarding GMOs. Rachel’s interest in non-genetically modified foods was sparked while researching GMOs for a school project and she was dismayed to learn that the Canadian government did not require food producers to label genetically altered foods.

Brijette is the owner of San Diego Seed Co., which produces organic, regionally adapted seeds for Southern California growers. She also facilitates participatory plant breeding, where growers and other stakeholders are an active part of making varieties more resilient.

Los Angeles gardener Wendi Phan knows how to get the most out of a small space for gardening, and she is a master of growing exotic varieties. Through her of Gardens of Wendiland,  she has been providing organically grown herbs and low maintenance living decors to homes and workspaces since 2010.

Julia Dakin is a lifelong farmer and co-founder of Going to Seed, an organization dedicated to shifting agriculture toward adaptation, community, and diversity. After losing her father to cancer, Julia became passionate about growing low-input, nutrient-dense food.  Based in Mendocino County, California, Julia's efforts focus on decommodifying our food system by empowering gardeners to save and share their own locally adapted seeds in their communities through seed libraries. Her work bridges ancestral wisdom with modern community-based approaches to address the challenges facing our food supply in a changing climate. Her talk will offer a deep dive into how gardeners can leverage genetic diversity and soil-microbe interactions to cultivate crops that are not only healthier and tastier but also more resilient. Attendees will gain both the knowledge and the inspiration to apply these concepts in their gardens, ultimately contributing to a healthier, more sustainable approach to food cultivation.

Joseph Lofthouse has adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, materials, and labor to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. If you want to spend less time amending soils and controlling bugs and weeds, and more time singing and dancing and eating tasty vegetables, you'll want to come to his talk! Joseph will share stories from his own garden, and talk about how he has honed skills of observation and plant selection to allow for adaptation and balance. Come and learn how to see insects and diseases not as pests to be feared and conquered, but as parts of an ecosystem that teaches your plants how to be resilient.

Herbal enthusiasts Susan Belsinger and Tina Marie Wilcox met in 1996 when Susan went to present two herb programs at the Ozark Folk Center, where Tina Marie is herbalis and head gardener and coordinates all kinds of wonderful herbal events. Susan cooks, writes, takes photos, and teaches; her latest book the perfect bite: focus on flavor was published in 2022.

Having herbs, gardening, botanizing, foraging, good food and fun in common—Tina Marie and Susan hit it off—and that was the beginning of a long-distance friendship. Gardening from their respective homes, Susan in Maryland, and Tina Marie in Arkansas, they’ve exchanged a lot of seeds, plants, roots and ideas over the years. They have collaborated on presentations and workshops across the country, from the Smithsonian to Epcot and have done many programs for herbal organizations and businesses, conferences and botanic gardens. They co-authored the creative herbal home, which celebrates their living the herbal life and have written for national publications like Mother Earth Living, The Herb Companion, The Herbarist, Herbs for Health and GRIT, as well as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-Regions Guides.

Tina and Susan are both members of the International Herb Association, Herb Society of America, American Botanical Council and United Plant Savers—and they both share a passion for all things herbal.

Hummingbird was raised on a homestead in Northern California, where her family raised animals and grew a big garden and orchard. She now lives on a 5-acre permaculture site, where she is developing a food forest, gardens, and a fruit and nut orchard. Her other projects involve the revival of tree frogs on her land. She is also a dedicated seed saver and heirloom gardening and is working on the revival of a nearly extinct heirloom squash from her father’s hometown of Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. She enjoys working with her grandchildren and teaching them food sovereignty, Permaculture, and the old methods of gardening that were handed down from generation to generation in her family.

Julian Vasquez Chun of The Garden's Edge in Guatemala, and Cristobal Osario Sanchez, of  Quachuu Aloom “Mother Earth” Association, Rabinal, Guatemala, will present their work to bring back the traditional "Milpa" systems in Guatemala.  Milpa describes a traditional system of companion planting, that includes heirloom corn, beans and squash, as well as other important understory plants like wild edible greens, chiles and medicinal plants. Many Milpa systems were destroyed during Guatemala's civil war and further affected by the introduction of herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and hybrid seeds.  These two farmers will share their story about how they are working to ensure that these farming practices are not lost.   

Randy Ritchie is a co-founder and CEO of Malibu Compost, makers of the first certified Biodynamic compost in the U.S. Randy is also a prolific author and organic gardening educator, as well as a consultant on mid to large-scale landscape and agricultural projects.  In his talk, he will break down what “organic” does and doesn’t mean and offer actionable advice for both beginning and experienced growers. Learn more about his work at Grow Real Organic | Classes and Consultations.

Aurelia Xitumul and Sabina Sosof will talk about the Mayan concept of "food as medicine".  They will share their work to restore the ancient grain of Amaranth and share how this tiny seed has helped start a seed movement that has extended far beyond their villages in Guatemala, bringing health and connection to the many gardeners who have planted this special seed.  

Sabina Sosof of Maya Na'oj