“The Pork Evangelist,” an international livestock educator and farm marketing coach. He has trained over 5,000 full-time farmers and homesteaders in scaling profitable farm enterprises by helping them overcome their fears of under-pricing and marketing their story. Pork Rhyne has been featured in Homesteaders of America, ABC's Localish, PBS's Resilient Agriculture, and Mother Earth News. He is passionate about developing farmers as servant leaders on their farm, in their home, and within their community. Pork Rhyne is also the host of AGRO Educators International on YouTube.

 Rich Giordano has been involved in horticulture for over 28 years. 

Rich has worked at Old Sturbridge Village, where, among other things, he managed and maintained their botanical collections. 
Rich also worked with the American chestnut foundation doing educational outreach, orchard design, planting and maintenance. 
He now dedicates his time to playing with his edible forest & gardens at All Hill Farm in central Massachusetts.

My family and I moved to a beautiful parcel of land in Washington County in the summer of 2016. As an avid outdoorsman, I was always drawn to wild and natural settings. 

This land provided the perfect template to create a “food forest” - combining cultivated gardens of fruit trees, berries, medicinals, and vegetables; tucked into the uncultivated setting of the existing wild habitat - apple trees, grapes, berries, mushrooms, wild edibles, etc.

From this experiment evolved the idea to make unique homestead ciders and meads. At MeloMoon Cider, we have been producing dry, traditional style ciders, cysers, & meads for 6 years, using the wild fruit and yeast this land has to offer.

 On this journey, we continue to experiment and learn as we await the harvest from all the fruit trees we have planted and continue to plant for future generations…cheers! 

 MW Farmstead was established during the beginning of 2020 by Tonia Goddard with the help of her family. Primarily focusing of raising a herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats and making of goat milk soap, skincare and other natural home products. The business grew rapidly and now Tonia shares her love of soap making and natural skincare with others by teaching workshops using natural ingredients you can find right at home or source locally

Aaron Gabriel has worked for Cornell Cooperative Extension as a Crops and Soils Educator since 1996.  Currently he covers four counties in the Albany region where he provides educational programs to commercial farmers on the topics of field crop production (grains, forage crops, and pasture), manure management, and composting.  Aaron completed the Maine Composting Course and teaches classes on composting and soil health.  He recently completed a educational project teaching on-farm grain storage.

Dr. Peck is the Director of Research and Education at Betterbee in Greenwich, NY, where he assists in product development and research, and also teaches classes and develops scientifically-sound educational materials. His doctoral work in Cornell University's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior was supervised by Professor Tom Seeley. His dissertation research focused on the transmission of mites between bee colonies, as well as the mite-resistance traits of the untreated honey bees living in Cornell's Arnot Forest.

After earning his degree, he has continued to research varroa/bee interactions, including fieldwork in Newfoundland, Canada (where varroa still have not arrived) and Anosy Madagascar (where varroa arrived only in 2010 or 2011). He has served as a teaching postdoctoral fellow in Cornell's Department of Entomology, and is still affiliated with Cornell through the Honey Bee Health program in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Peck has kept bees for more than a decade, though his home apiary is often full of mite-riddled research colonies so he doesn't usually produce much honey. 

Dough Haven Farm LLC is located in Washington county, NY and has alpaca, LGDs, dairy and
cashmere goats, chickens, ducks, geese and farms specialty mushrooms. Part of the Dough Haven
Farm mission statement is to participate in educating the community. David together with his wife,
Mary and brother, Don mentors adults and children of all ages to educate about sustainable
agroforestry and farming practices.David and Don are both Veteran farmers, both semi-retired chefs.
We are supported by the Homegrown by Heroes program through Farmer Veteran Coalition federally
and NY local chapter. Other support comes from Cornell small farms and Veteran Farm ops
programs. David and Mary are members of New York State Forest Owners Association, NYFOA and
are Master Forest Owners, MFO.
Workshops are held at the farm to educate people on farming specialty mushrooms, animal
husbandry, fiber goats, and sustainable forestry practices. David caters the Agritourism events and
other farm gatherings. Much of the food is produced on our farm or by other local farms. The
complete story and pictures can be found at DoughHavenFarm.com

One of my favorite memories of childhood is getting home from school and enjoying a piece of chocolate cake right out of the oven.  The cake was still warm so you had to spoon the frosting onto the piece that you were eating.  After the snack, it was out to the barn for chores on the family’s dairy farm that was located in Kingsbury, Washington County.

Comfort desserts with a bit of nostalgia have always been my passion.  Cookies as big as your face, buttery biscuits, rich chocolate cakes and brownies.   Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pâte à choux.  Mine is always filled with dense homemade custard made with whole milk, butter, and farm fresh eggs.   

I always dreamed of someday owning my own bakery/candy shop but, as life often goes, my career went another way.  My background in hospitality management and marketing had me living in East Tennessee and Southwest Florida.  There is no place like home and I returned to Washington County a little over 15 years ago.  For the last 13 years I have been employed as the Marketing and Communications Director for New Skete Monasteries.  (Yes, home of the Nuns of New Skete Cheesecake.)

Five years ago, I discovered cookie art.  Word started getting out about my baked goods.   Once again, I was thinking of opening my own shop, but the cost and risk were daunting.  I did my research and found New York cottage/home processor laws, and my home bakery business was started.

Brian is a 4th Generation homesteader.  Since 2008, he has been homesteading on a little over 2 acres with his wife Bonnie and son Brian Jr here in Greenwich, NY.  Along the way he has raised egg laying chickens, meat chickens, meat rabbits, ducks, turkeys, geese and American Guinea Hogs.  He is an avid gardener with a particular fondness for the Square Foot and Ruth Stout garden methods.   He enjoys preserving the harvest using a variety of methods including canning, fermenting, freezing and dehydrating. 

In 2019, he launched the Homestead Journey Podcast to help people get started and find success on their journey towards Self-Sufficiency, Self-Reliance and Sustainability. Now in it's 4th season, the podcast has over 145 episodes and almost 200,000 downloads.  He has been a guest on several other podcasts and in 2022, he was featured in an interview in Authority Magazine.  

In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar and singing in the choir and praise team at church and teaching snowboarding at Willard Mountain.

In 2016, Jack and his wife Jacqueline bought an 11 acre parcel of land in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, and began the process of working the land to not only produce ethically raised protein for themselves, but for the community around them. 6 years and 2 daughters later, they are raising and selling pastured pork, turkey, and chicken through their farm, The Mindful Homestead where they also host multiple workshops and educational opportunities each year for others who want to do the same. You can find them at www.mindfulhomestead.com.