The Agroforestry Symposium
Every year, the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri hosts a public Symposium to grow connections and raise awareness about important work happening in our field. Always free and open to the public, the Symposium provides both virtual and in-person opportunities to participate.
Thanks to all who participated in the 2024 Agroforestry Symposium!
Recordings of each session will be posted on the @MizzouAgroforestry YouTube Channel in the coming weeks. A link to the videos will be sent to all registrants when they are available.
Add silvopasture resources to the shared spreadsheet!
The 2024 Agroforestry Symposium, Silvopasture in Practice, will explore how silvopasture practices have emerged as some of the most critical agroforestry tools for carbon sequestration and farm system integration. As funding and technical assistance for silvopasture establishment becomes more readily available within new and existing incentive programs, we understand the need to convey the complexity of these integrated systems, the challenges producers face, and stories of success. In addition to sharing farm-level insights, this year’s Symposium will bring together the country’s leading scientists and practitioners exploring silvopasture’s potential, to identify a roadmap for future research needs, to solidify connections, and to spark new collaborations.
Join us in-person in Columbia, MO or virtually from anywhere for a full day of presentations, panels, and discussions on long-term silvopasture research, early adopters and innovators, intergenerational land management approaches, regional insights and challenges, and the environmental, economic and social impacts of silvopasture as a land mangement strategy.
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
10 am to 5 pm CST
In-person at the Center for Missouri Studies
605 Elm Street, Columbia, MO, 65201
Livestreamed via Zoom
Symposium Program
All times listed are Central Standard Time.
Ben Knapp
Dr. Knapp is the interim Director of the Center for Agroforestry and an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources. His research focuses on integrating silviculture with restoration ecology, with particular interest in addressing issues with tree regeneration and with refining the use of prescribed burning as a management tool. His research includes evaluating practices for establishing silvopasture and integrating silvopasture with restoration of natural communities. He regularly teaches courses in silviculture and fire ecology. Since 2015, he has also served as Faculty Manager of the Baskett Forest, where he has led an annual maple syrup production project that brings together faculty, staff, and students to learn about maple ecology and syrup production.
Hannah Hemmelgarn
Hannah Hemmelgarn oversees the Center’s communications, partnerships, and events. Her background as an agroforestry practitioner, an educator, and a program coordinator informs her work to advance agroforestry implementation through network development, training program design, and critical research connections. She currently coordinates the Annual Agroforestry Symposium and Agroforestry Training Academy, develops content for The Agroforestry Podcast and Action in Agroforestry E-News, and facilitates student engagement and internships. Her scholarship is focused on curriculum development, program evaluation, and relational accountability in community-driven agroforestry research.
Ashley Conway-Anderson
Dr. Conway-Anderson’s research investigates intensive integrated tree-forage-livestock systems in order to raise livestock more sustainably and to understand livestock interactions with forage, crops, and trees in silvopasture systems. Her primary goal is to develop a research program investigating the logistical, economic, environmental, and social dynamics of silvopasture systems in Missouri and the Midwest through the lens of efficient and responsible animal production. The Conway Lab seeks to better understand how to optimize animal performance and nutrition using silvopastoral production practices while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services and tree performance. Dr. Conway uses a systems-level approach to measure animal performance, health and welfare, and environmental impact. With this information, her goal is to develop scientifically-supported recommendations to producers to support silvopasture adoption.
Julie Hager
Julie serves as a Technical Service Provider developing managed grazing & silvopasture plans for landowners which aid to provide a strong foundation for success. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Forestry with an emphasis on ecosystem restoration and management from UW-Stevens Point. Julie also spent over a decade as an NRCS employee, becoming well versed in government programs available to producers and a variety of farming techniques. She successfully launched a consulting business, “The Parcel Planner”, working with deer hunting enthusiasts to improve the habitat of their recreational land. She lives in the countryside near Richland Center, WI with her husband and 3 children. They enjoy gardening, foraging, chasing whitetails, trout and other outdoor pursuits.
Steve Gabriel
Steve Gabriel is an ecologist, farmer, educator, and consultant living and stewarding lands at Wellspring Forest Farm in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. Throughout his career, Steve has taught and consulted with thousands of farmers and land stewards on a wide range of agricultural practices including water management, agroforestry, silvopasture, and mushroom cultivation. He also collaborates on agroforestry work with the Farming with Trees collective.
At Wellspring Forest Farm, Steve and his family steward about 40 acres of land in a lifelong practice of restoring healthy water, soil, and forests. The farm produces mushrooms, pastured lamb, maple syrup, and nursery trees, while offering a demonstration site for regenerative farming practices. Steve co-authored Farming the Woods in 2014, and is author of Silvopasture, released in 2018. He previously worked for 12 years with the Cornell Small Farms Program, as extension specialist focusing on mushroom and agroforestry systems.
Website: www.WellspringForestFarm.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/wellspringforestfarm
Email: SteveGabrielFarmer@gmail.com
Andria Caruthers
Moderator
Andria is a USDA-NIFA fellow with the Center for Agroforestry. She is working on her PhD in Natural Resources and is advised by professors Robin Rotman, J.D., Dr. Corinne Valdivia, Dr. Benjamin Knapp, and Dr. Michael Gold. Her research is focused on exploring the resources landowners use to transition into perennial crop production and what role elderberry production plays as an enterprise diversification strategy for growers. She was awarded a graduate student SARE grant to fund research with elderberry growers and provide education to the public on planting and processing elderberry for home use. She collaborates with Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture on planting and management of a native plant medicinal demonstration garden and provides outreach and education to the public on uses and benefits of planting native edibles in urban spaces.
A complementary lunch is provided for all in-person guests.
Molly Taylor
Molly works to bridge the gap between the agriculture industry and environmentalists to help local farmers turn their land into carbon sinks while turning a profit. Molly studied Urban Planning at New York University before moving back to California to manage her family’s ranching operation. She is currently working on executing a USDA Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities project with Wolfe’s Neck Center.
Learn more about Molly’s work at PT Ranch and join the Symposium to hear about lessons learned since this video was produced!
Josh Payne
Josh Payne is a Missouri row-crop farmer who farms with his sister, Jordan Welch, on 600 acres in western Missouri. Over the past 10 years, he has gone deep into agroforestry. They have a young 30 acre chestnut grove, an 800 ewe hair sheep flock, aspirations for fodder producing windbreaks, and dreams of a youth educational center centered around a unique synthesis of Regenerative Agriculture and Agroforestry. You can find information about Josh and his operation at rustedplowshare.com.
John Fike
John Fike is a professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and Virginia’s state forage extension specialist. John grew up on a small, successful family dairy in Franklin County, VA. After completing a BS in science education (Wake Forest University) and a period of global travel (including work on grazing dairies in New Zealand), John pursued an MS in forage agronomy (Virginia Tech) and a PHD in dairy science (U Florida). John has conducted research on forages and forage systems, biomass-for-bioenergy crops, and industrial hemp over his career. His primary forage systems focus is on silvopastures, which he began researching soon after joining the faculty at Virginia Tech in 2000.
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin engages immigrants, farmers old and new, and established agricultural entrepreneurs in his life’s work of designing, refining, and championing a global model for poultry-powered, planet cooling, scalable and regenerative agriculture. After a decade of research and development, countless partners and farmers around the globe, and degrees in agroecology and business management, Regi is in a unique position to help the next generation of farmers and businesses. Regi has surrounded himself in this work by launching the non-profit Regenerative Agriculture Alliance and co-founding the Tree-Range® Chicken brand, which have built the foundation for successful regenerative design and business. He is creating opportunities to heal the earth, and bringing back the hope of a future of restoration by introducing real and tangible ways we can change the world today through regenerative practices. Read more about Regi.
Austin Unruh
Austin founded Trees For Graziers to help farmers in Pennsylvania and beyond take their grazing to new heights using silvopasture. It’s his goal to make silvopasture as easy and cost effective as possible for farmers, which is why TFG offers everything from planning and funding acquisition to planting and aftercare, while also growing silvo-specific nursery stock. When not thinking about silvopasture, Austin’s favorite activity is picking berries with his young family.
Ashley Conway-Anderson
Moderator
Dr. Conway-Anderson’s research investigates intensive integrated tree-forage-livestock systems in order to raise livestock more sustainably and to understand livestock interactions with forage, crops, and trees in silvopasture systems. Her primary goal is to develop a research program investigating the logistical, economic, environmental, and social dynamics of silvopasture systems in Missouri and the Midwest through the lens of efficient and responsible animal production. The Conway Lab seeks to better understand how to optimize animal performance and nutrition using silvopastoral production practices while maintaining or enhancing ecosystem services and tree performance. Dr. Conway uses a systems-level approach to measure animal performance, health and welfare, and environmental impact. With this information, her goal is to develop scientifically-supported recommendations to producers to support silvopasture adoption.
Wyn Miller
Wyn Miller is an environmental consultant based in East Tennessee, specializing in climate-smart agriculture, silvopasture, and intergenerational farm transitions. She is a fifth generation farmer and serves as the COO of Lick Skillet Farm – her family’s century farm. Miller previously worked as a licensed landscape architect, in the field of stormwater management and ecological landscape design. Currently she is engaged in developing grazing and land management scenarios that reintegrate native species into southeastern woodlots and pasturelands.
Eli Roberts
Eli is an agroforestry planner with Interlace Commons who works with farmers across the Northeast. As a forester, farmer, and consultant focusing on ecological forest management and agroforestry systems, he is particularly interested in silvopasture and conservation biocontrol. He has helped forest landowners upgrade their management plans to enroll in NRCS programs and developed watershed-scale forest conservation strategies with NGOs. Eli has written a guide to managing forests in a changing climate and a book chapter on agroforestry for the Northeast. He attended Villanova and Yale for his degrees in Psychology and Forestry. He has been a teacher, social worker, gardener, project manager, and part-time chestnut orchardist. He loves watching sheep eat leaves from a row of coppiced mulberries. Eli currently works as a technical service provider at Interlace Commons.
Christine Nieman
Dr. Christine Nieman is a Research Animal Scientist with USDA Agriculture Research Service, Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in Booneville, Arkansas. Dr. Nieman is a ruminant nutritionist with an interest in beef forage and grazing systems. She earned her Ph.D. in animal sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where her research focused on grazing systems for stocker cattle, including utilization of warm season annuals and grass and legume mixtures. Dr. Nieman earned her Master’s in animal science from Michigan State University with an emphasis in dairy grazing systems and she earned a Bachelor of Science in dairy sciences from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. In general, her research strives to determine strategies for increasing the profitability of small beef farms in the mid-South through various forage management approaches. These approaches include decreasing costs by reducing hay feeding and extending the grazing season, and increasing productivity through utilization of annual forage species, baleage, and supplementation on pasture. Dr. Nieman’s silvopasture research focuses on forage establishment, growth, persistence, and general management in shaded environments.
Dusty Walter
Moderator
Dusty Walter received his Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Missouri in 2011 where his research focused on silvopasture, the management of woodlots for forage production that animals remove through appropriate grazing practices. Dr. Walter is currently the Director of the MU Central Missouri Research, Extension and Education Center. In this role he oversees operations of University Farms in the Central part of the state. His broad-base involvement in natural resources and agricultural production builds upon better than a decade of cross-disciplinary experience that is rooted in integrated stewardship of farm resources.
If you would like to submit a poster for the Symposium, please contact Gina Beebe <geebe@missouri.edu>.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Browse past Agroforestry Symposia here.