Festival presenters
John Ikerd | KeyNote Speaker
Dr. John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri. John was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri, and he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Missouri. He spent the first half of his academic career as a livestock marketing specialist and the latter half focused on issues related to sustainable agriculture. Since retiring, he spends most of his time writing and speaking about issues related to the sustainability of agriculture. John and his wife, Ellen, reside in Fairfield, Iowa, with their two dogs and three cats. John has authored five books: Sustainable Capitalism, A Return to Common Sense, Small Farms Are Real Farms, Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture, and Essentials of Economic Sustainability.
Matt and Annie | Speakers
Matt Wechsler and Annie Speicher are a husband-and-wife filmmaking team from Evanston, Illinois with a passion for sustainable agriculture. Their first collaboration, SUSTAINABLE, screened at over 40 festivals worldwide and received the 2016 Global Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Achievement. When not making films, Matt and Annie enjoy spending time with their two children, who are the reason they fight for a better food system. In the summers, you can find them working in their backyard urban farm, which features over 75 varieties of edible plants.
Brent TYC | Workshops
Farmer, Brent Tyc manages Huidekoper Ranch, a small-scale, bio-intensive farm in Wilson growing healthy food for the Jackson Hole community. Huidekoper is a family-run ranch that has been boarding horses and growing hay in Wilson since 1952. In 2016, they converted 1/3 an acre of hayfield into a small-scale, intensive farm. Using only a small BCS walk-behind tractor and hand tools, they grow in permanent raised-beds with minimal tillage and fertilize with locally sourced and/or organic-certified compost to promote a rich, biologically diverse soil structure.